Training in the Dark
Ar’on smacked her shoulder with his wooden practice sword, and she let out a yelp, hopping a little toward the side to avoid any further hits. He frowned and rolled his eyes with a small shake of his head. An exasperated sigh left him as he let his arms fall, the sword rocking back and forth in his loose grip.
“You’re still not guarding properly,” Tyron said from the corner of the room, his arms crossed as he surveyed his charge’s progress. He resisted the urge to remind her, again, that she was supposed to focus on her opponent’s movements.
Rolling her eyes, Jennifer Monroe rubbed her wounded shoulder as she looked over at Tyron. “You’re having me train with a wooden sword; what could this possibly teach me about fighting with energy?” She was only eighteen, still young in any hybrid’s eyes, but picked up fighting tactics faster than he would have anticipated, especially considering she had only been aware of her abilities as a Human-Born for a little over a year.
She was short and athletically built, but never would he consider her tiny. Her medium-length brown hair framed her face, sometimes obscuring her hazel eyes when her bangs got too long. She usually had her hair hidden under a baseball cap when she trained to keep the locks from flying into her face.
Tyron’s gaze hardened as he pushed himself off the wall and made his way to the middle of the room where they stood. “It’s not about the weapon.” He took the practice sword from Ar’on, and the elder warrior stepped aside as the Team Leader took his place. “It’s about how you wield it. Your energy is a part of you, and any good swordsman will tell you that a blade is an extension of themselves. The great ones learn to treat it like a part of their bodies. You need to learn to do the same in order to keep your power in check.”
“In check of what?” She shrugged. “I thought I was wielding it pretty well.” To accentuate her point, she held her left hand out and twinged her fingers a bit as smokey blue tendrils flew around her digits.
Flicking the tip of his sword at her hand, Tyron smacked her and the energy dissipated.
“Hey—”
“You don’t have full control of it yet. Being so lackadaisical about it will only lull you into a false sense of confidence. That’s the worst thing you could do.”
Jen let out a disgruntled sigh. “What harm could it possibly do?”
“That’s a loaded question.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“It sounded like one,” Tyron said as he lifted his sword.
Mirroring his stance, she was quiet for a few seconds before she said, “I really do want to know.”
“You might hurt yourself, someone else, or you could blow something up for all we know,” he said as he jabbed forward. With a clack, clack, clack, the wood met in succession as he gently pushed her backward. Jen hopped with each movement fluidly, just as she had seen on shows and in movies. A simple movement. He was testing her on something, but she didn’t know what.
“I can’t blow things up,” she said sarcastically. When Tyron didn’t respond or move, she jutted her sword forward. He countered, and she pushed forward again, trying to force him backward. He kept his feet grounded, and despite her efforts to move him, he blocked each of her blows effortlessly and sent her stumbling back.
“We don’t know that,” he said as the wood clanked with each hit.
“You don’t know anything about my energy,” she retorted, getting ever angrier as he calmly and easily deflected her attacks.
He still wasn’t breaking a sweat, but she could feel her pulse beginning to speed up, still trying to get some movement out of him. Every now and then, she might cause him to lean back slightly, but his feet never moved. She could swear not a single hair on his head shifted. Jen felt like she was only dancing around, trying to find his vulnerable spot.
A smile tugged at his lips as he watched her struggle. “We know that it’s just like ours, but stronger. That being said, you should learn the basics. No one’s above the basics.”
Her frustration bubbling, Jen jabbed forward and let out a small yell. Tyron side-stepped and brought his blade around, smacking her in the back with little effort. He didn’t hold back on the power behind his hit, though.
He wasn’t going easy on her. He never did. Clearly, he had never learned to not hit girls when he was growing up.
As Jen fell to her knees and let out a hiss, he said, “No one here would doubt for a second that you’re powerful, Jen. But all that means is that your energy needs to be treated with even more care than a normal hybrid.”
She glared at him from over her shoulder. “Was that necessary?”
“You’re not thinking through your attacks.” He placed the tip of the sword on the ground and leaned against the hilt. “You’re just…flailing the weapon at your enemy, hoping it’ll connect. You’re not actually taking in their advantages or disadvantages. It’s like your mentality is that you’ll wear them down.”
“Maybe that method works,” she said, gritting her teeth as she stood. Gently touching her back, she felt the muscles flinch at her soft inspection. It was going to bruise, and badly. She hated that he never held back. He never treated her like a fragile human.
Sure, fine, she wasn’t a fragile human, but it still hurt to be whacked with the full strength of a Chief Master of the Agerian Defense.
Tyron tilted his head slightly and scrunched his face. “Mm, that’s not likely.”
“Look, it works in video games,” she said, deadpan.
He sniggered. “Right, because that’s the best argument for why things should work in reality.” He closed the distance between them and snatched the sword from her. Turning around, he walked to the far wall and put the swords back on the racks.
“Did you have to hit me so hard?” she whined.
“A little bruising never killed anyone,” Ar’on said from his spot in the corner.
“Easy for you to say.”
The elder hybrid grinned, an action that showcased his wrinkles most prominently, and said, “Trust me when I say that I’ve had my fair share of sore mornings.”
“Sure you have.”
“We’re going to keep working on this,” Tyron proclaimed, walking back toward her. “These methods will help you learn how to focus what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You can’t just go shooting your energy around like a leaf in the wind.”
Jen let out a short breath before she said, “Hypothetical question.”
“Okay…”
“Let’s say there are enemies around, and only enemies. And, like, you’re not there. And no one’s there. And it’s just me.”
“Jen,” Tyron said with a slightly bored look.
“Let’s just say I’m alone, and I get attacked. And there’s no one around that could get hurt.” She shrugged. “What’s to say I can’t just unleash some energy then?”
Tyron glanced at Ar’on before returning his gaze to her. “I’m not saying never use your energy. I’m saying you need to learn how to properly wield it so you don’t hurt yourself or anyone else.”
She glanced at the swords hanging on the wall and asked as she pointed at them, “And those will help with that?”
With a nod, he said, “Yes.” As she opened her mouth to say something, he held up a finger and added, “With time and practice.”
As though he were asking her to do a dance recital in front of the whole school, she grumbled, “Fine.”
“You’ll thank me for this, eventually.” Glancing at his watch, he continued, “All right, it’s almost two. You’d better get home and get some sleep before—”
“Tyron!”
All three of them turned toward the doorway where a five-foot tall, tan grovix, named Archer, skidded to a stop just past the threshold. Archer had a more canine structure to his face, with big ears that sat erect on his head, and large feet. Jen had never asked, but she thought it was fair to guess that Archer’s weight rivaled a lion’s.
“There’s a Ferveos loose,” Archer said.
“What?” Tyron asked, pulling his brow together.
There was a swirl of silver dust, and a lean man appeared in front of the grovix, lackadaisically holding a tablet. Called a Jumper, he had the ability to shift into and out of the third and fifth dimensions. He used it in a cavalier manner, frequently choosing to close the distance between floors rather than towns. Krelien easily could be called the most fashionable of the group and, without a doubt, the shortest.
“Hey, there’s a Ferveos out in a cow field.”
“Hey, dingus, I said I would get them,” Archer barked.
“Obviously, not fast enough,” Krelien said with a smirk. He turned back toward the others. “It’s like fifteen miles from here.”
The Alpha Team Leader flitted his eyes around the room for a moment before he turned to Jen, who stared at him apprehensively. A little uneasily, Tyron asked her, “You up for slaying a dragon?”
-----
Two thirty in the morning was not an ideal time to be out and about on the back of a motorcycle, especially when it was early November in Eastern Pennsylvania. The air was bitingly chilly. Coupled with the speed in which they traveled, it would have caused a normal person to probably freeze to death.
When Tyron had decided to bring her along for the dragon slaying, something she had only ever been a spectator for in the past, Jen had thought he would choose to take something practical, like a car. Instead, when they walked out of the antique shop that was the team’s headquarters, Tyron had walked over to his motorcycle.
As he had thrown a helmet to her and saw her displeased look, he’d said, “Learn how to block out the cold.”
Jen had begrudgingly situated herself behind Tyron on the motorcycle and said, “We haven’t seen a Ferveos in almost a year. Why do you think there’s one loose now?”
The engine had been kicked to life as Tyron responded, “For kicks and giggles?”
“That’s not a serious answer.”
“I didn’t say it was.” Without another word, he had taken off.
Their resident werewolf, Kaldok, had provided them with the coordinates for the last location that the dragon had been seen. The team had a setup of little beacons, of a nearly three-hundred-mile radius of their location, that would alert them to the presence of any enemy fighters. That distance covered almost all of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and chunks of Maryland, and Jen was pretty sure that radius was the extent of their travels in their eighteen years on Earth.
In the last year and a half that she had known them, they had never seemed to be more than a half-hour’s distance from her, even when she was at school.
Though she hated to admit it, Tyron had been right. The biting cold had been treacherous on her fingers when they had taken off. She knew that she had the ability to essentially raise or lower her body temperature, and this was a prime opportunity to get better at that.
The motorcycle was slowed down, and then Tyron killed the headlight as he pulled the bike off to the side of the road. He said nothing as he parked, and she took the cue to stretch her sense of hearing. It took a few seconds, but she soon heard it—leathery wings, giant feet, and ripping skin.
As she removed her helmet, Archer came up to the two of them with another grovix at his side. The other large creature had more feline features and stood almost a foot shorter than her team member. With a pristine white coat, a picture-perfect mane, dainty paws, and vibrant red eyes, Blaze commanded attention, whether it was wanted or not, upon entering a room.
“I thought you might never sense the beast with how quickly you chose to move,” Blaze said, her voice low.
“Do you…have to drive…so fast?” Archer panted out heavily, with a whine between gasps.
Tyron shushed them as he pulled his helmet off. Absentmindedly, he ruffled his hair, trying to force the short brown locks into a neater fashion than the helmet had allowed. Jen did likewise, thankful that none of her Zaheri cared what she looked like.
From the other side of the road, a loud whisper sounded, “Why’d we stop?”
Tyron rolled his eyes at the sky, and Blaze yipped in a disapproving manner, while Archer stifled a snort.
Krelien walked out from behind the tree line and said, still in a far-too-loud whisper, “I just don’t get why we were practically yeeting, only to suddenly stop. I think Kaldok’s in the next state by now.”
“Would you be quiet?” Tyron reprimanded in a hushed anger through his gritted teeth.
Krelien leaned back a bit and held up his hands defensively. “Y’know, next time I forget the coffee, just make me go back for it.”
“Yes, naturally, that is the reason for which Tyron is irate with you,” Blaze whispered, glaring at Krelien.
The younger hybrid scrunched his brow a bit. “Why else would he be mad at me?”
Sometimes, Jen thought his idiocy was on purpose. This time, she wasn’t entirely sure.
He took the sniper rifle that was slung across his shoulder and placed the barrel on the ground, leaning against the butt of the weapon. “For reality, why’d we stop?”
“The phrase is for reals,” Jen corrected. “And you used yeet wrong. And we stopped because the Ferveos is over there.” She pointed to the right. From what she could tell, despite the dense fog, there was a large field where some faint mooing could still be heard, presumably from cows dropped there from a nearby pasture. The smell of manure made her nose wrinkle, and Jen decided that she would focus on the scent of the frost clinging to the grass.
Straightening, Krelien glanced at Tyron then back to Jen before he said, “Good for you—hearing that far away.”
“Thanks, Teach,” the teenager said with a grin.
Tyron’s phone buzzed and he fished it out of his pocket to read the text message that had popped up. Jen leaned around him to read it, and he glanced back at her before he put the phone away. “Ar’on’s in place. We can start to move forward.”
As they all began to slowly head into the field, Tyron waved the two grovix toward the right, and with the soft pad-falls, the four-legged creatures ran into the fog and disappeared. It always amazed Jen how quiet they could be, even Archer with his massive paws.
“Where do you want me?” Krelien whispered at Tyron’s left.
“Rendezvous with Ar’on. Kaldok’s in position exactly opposite of here. I’ll keep an eye on her from this position,” Tyron hushed back.
“You’re the goat,” Krelien said with a mock salute.
Tyron wrinkled his brow as he looked at him. When Krelien was a few feet away, Tyron then glanced to Jen and asked, “That couldn’t be right. Is that right?”
Jen shrugged. “No, yeah, he’s right.”
“You humans and your weird sayings…”
The two of them crouched forward until they reached a stone wall that was about three feet high. Ducking behind it, Tyron took in a deep breath, and Jen stared at him with anticipation.
“All right, so here’s the rules of this,” he started.
“Yes!” Jen whispered victoriously.
He gave her a disapproving look, and she quieted herself.
“Kaldok is directly across the field from us. Blaze and Archer are to your right, while Ar’on and Krelien will be to your left. I’ll be right here. The point of this isn’t that you kill it by yourself; the point is that you begin to understand just how dangerous these guys are. I’m going to let you try to kill it by yourself. The key word is let. As in, I’m letting you try this, and if I think you don’t have control of the situation—”
“Yes, yes, yes, I got it,” she said impatiently.
He grabbed her jittery arm to focus her. “Jen, I’m serious. This isn’t a game.”
“I got it, I do. Seriously, I completely understand the danger that is happening right now.”
There was silence for a couple seconds before Tyron said, “You’re sure about this?”
A grin came to her face. “Definitely.”
He peeked his head over the wall and glanced at the Ferveos before he returned his attention to her.
She clasped her hands and said in a pleading, whiny voice, “Please?”
He then glanced to the sky and frowned a little as he raised his left hand, gesturing toward the beast.
As she began to rise from her position, he snatched her arm. “Be careful.”
“Yeah, thanks for that, Sherlock,” Jen quipped. She didn’t wait to see his frustrated glare as she straightened.
She hopped over the fence and landed with the slightest bit of noise before she inched toward the creature. In the fog, it was hard to tell exactly how big this dragon was. She knew that Ferveos could be nearly twenty-five-feet tall with a wingspan of about twenty feet. Her spatial reasoning wasn’t stellar, and it was hunched over, so determining how big it was would prove difficult.
Its bulk didn’t matter. Not really. A dragon was a dragon in her book. She had to find a way to incapacitate it, immobilize it or, best option, kill it. Head, throat, heart; three main points would be her aim.
She tried to recall the diagram of the inside of a dragon. All that came to mind was a bleary exhaustion as Ar’on pointed at the various points with a muffled sort of “wah, wah” Charlie Brown level noise.
Dang, she really needed to pay better attention.
No matter. She could do this. She had seen her Zaheri take out a Ferveos before. Sure, it had been about a year since that had happened. But the memory was clear for her. At least, clearer than the classroom diagram.
She remembered being a little scared at the sound of the Ferveos’ roar and slapping her hands over her ears. She remembered that it hadn’t seemed to take much time. She remembered that they hadn’t needed to use their guns. She could do this. She had studied dragon weak points enough to know where to focus her attention. Her Zaheri had taken it out with relative ease, she thought. And she was stronger than her Zaheri. That had to account for something.
The scales on the Ferveos were dark; ranges of blacks and greys all over its body. Its wings were pulled along its body, curled up against its sides. She could still hear the air rustle through them and the leathery sound of pivoting joints. Her heart pounded at the prospect of what she was about to do.
Two bone spikes slowly cracked through her skin, pushing through her shirt’s self-replicating threads, and tore through familiar holes in her jacket; one at her wrist and another at her elbows. They matched the talons on her wings with their curvature and color.
That sound must have been louder than her footfalls, because the dragon suddenly lifted its head and whipped it around to stare at her. She stilled instantly and felt her muscles quake to overcompensate for tensing up.
She was thinking too much. Just relax. They couldn’t see great in the dark and sometimes they didn’t realize something was nearby until it was right on top of them.
The Ferveos shoved the dead cow aside, and its wings flapped open as it bellowed at her. She had to actively tell herself to not slap her hands over her ears, and her stomach trembled at the sound—like an inferno and a roar smashed together.
It beat its wings a couple of times, starting to lift itself into the air, and she stuttered back. Oh no, she wasn’t ready for aerial combat.
In desperation, she let out a small grunt and crossed her arms like an X over her chest, and then she threw them down. The bone spikes at her wrists shot out, and she worked to cloak them in her blue energy so she could control their trajectory. One of them smacked into the dragon’s wing membrane and tore a large hole into the sinew. The other, she controlled better. It soared into its main wing bone, the humerus. The bone shattered and forced its wing to fall limp.
With a cry cut short, the Ferveos landed solidly on all fours and looked to its broken wing. Snapping its fury-filled eyes at her, it let out another bellow. All the while, it kept working to move its broken wing.
“Okay, it’s immobilized. Now what?” she muttered to herself, darting her gaze around the field. She found her options for a weapon limited. If the prospect of it didn’t make her gag, she would just run over to the discarded cow and pry a bone loose to wield that like a sword. Maybe cloak it in her energy.
But the guts, and the brains, and the intestines, and…ew. It made bile rise in her throat that she quickly pushed back down.
Nope. Okay, bones from a cow were out.
The dragon turned and hurtled its spiked tail at her. She dove out of the way easily enough. Dodging correctly had been one of the first things she had been taught. If she braced her hands right, she could propel herself upright and land easily. That way, she wouldn’t have to pick herself up off the ground. Thankfully, she had been pretty good at that.
She landed easy-ish. The ground was slick with frosty dew, and she almost flailed herself into the grass. Waving her hands outward as she landed, she let out a small, uneasy noise and got her footing.
Returning her attention to the problem at hand, she barely had time to react before the Ferveos’ maw crashed down at her. She flashed her hands out, and her arms were just long enough to catch its top and bottom jaws. She slid against the grass and dug her heels into the ground to secure herself.
Like a dog when you try to shove a pill into its mouth, the Ferveos flailed above her, its tongue swiping this way and that. She tried not to vomit. There were chunks of bone, skin, meat, and other cow internal organs wedged into the dragon’s teeth. The smell that pushed at her was nearly unbearable.
Through gagging breaths, she grunted out, “Hey, y’know, why don’t you just be a good boy and leave me alone?” A trembling pressure rattled down her arms as the Ferveos worked to close its maw. “Have it your way,” she muttered and screwed her face in concentration.
Gripping the jaws in her grasp, she threw the creature back with all the power she could muster. Its head snapped back, the force enough to send it back-flipping to the ground.
She fled quickly back to Tyron as the dragon tried to disentangle itself from its broken wings that flopped around unhelpfully.
At the wall, she told her Zaheri, “I immobilized it, but I need a gun.”
He pulled his brow together and shrugged. “You won’t always have a gun.”
An infuriated roar bellowed behind her, and she turned to see the dragon flailing about. A few trees fell from its thrashing tail.
“You’ve already taken out its wings. It’s a downed dragon,” he continued.
She looked to him in desperation. “I need a weapon.”
“No Jen, you are a weapon.”
“Tyron!” She lunged for the pistol at his side, but he caught her arms and threw her back.
As she floundered backward, he said, “You said you wanted a shot at it. You won’t always have a weapon on you. You need to learn to utilize your skills to take enemy fighters out. Think about what you have at your disposal.”
“I am not using cow bones!” She threw a pointed finger up to accentuate her point.
He deflated and muttered, “Cow bones would break against a dragon’s scales. Jen, c’mon; think.”
She flailed her arms out wildly and screamed, “What am I supposed to use? My magic ninja powers?”
“I wouldn’t call them ninja powers, but you’ve got magic something.” He snapped his head up as thudding sounded, and his snarky expression shifted to battlefield attention.
With a growl of frustration, she ran back to the dragon. It had managed to fling its broken wings to its sides and now charged at her. The deadweight limbs flanked its bulk and dragged on the ground.
“You can do this, you can do this, you can do this.” Trying to talk herself into her hastily formed plan, she leapt into the air and yelled as she aimed for the dragon’s head.
“Oof!” She slammed into the dragon’s snout as it slid to a frantic stop and began writhing under her. Gritting her teeth, she worked to hold on tight to one of the smaller horns on its head and shimmied up its brow. Another bone spike appeared at her wrist, and as she went to send it hurtling into the dragon’s skull, it managed to throw her off. Her wayward spike flew out as she fell and smashed into the Ferveos’ eye.
She hit the ground with a thud, her back jarring angry messages to her brain at the impact. Skittering out from under the madly pawing dragon above her, she let out an airy whine as a taloned foot nearly squashed her. She had to put some distance between her and the dragon.
With one eye blinded and the other radiating fury, the Ferveos reared back a little, and she heard the bubbling, popping sound at its throat. She didn’t really think through her actions as she hurtled her hands out, and a flash of blue ghosted across the landscape, smacking into the dragon. Again, the beast hit the ground, vapors steaming from its clenched jaws.
A massive fire in the middle of a farming community wasn’t okay, so she had to keep the Ferveos from spewing it. That would impact too many other people.
She had to take this thing out, pronto.
She could try another attack with brute force, using her spike again to penetrate the skull and maybe hit the brain this time. Or, she could use an energy attack against it, seeing exactly what something like that could do to a dragon. Or, she could just run up and punch it, maybe see if it would bleed to death if she hit it enough times.
Or…she could ask Tyron for help.
The last option wasn’t a viable one, not yet, anyway. Neither was hoping the monster would bleed to death. It could just sit on her, and then she would be crushed, and the Ferveos would still take a while to die from its wounds. The first option probably wouldn’t work, either. Controlling her spikes in midair was proving less than adequate. And getting on its head again would likely end in a similar result. That left the energy attack. Deciding this had taken less than a second.
The Ferveos let out a low snarl. The sound rumbled up its throat and sent a shockwave down Jen’s spine.
She planted her left foot behind her slightly and brought her hands up in front of her, palms facing each other. Electrical zapping skittered down her arms as little blue sparks littered the air around her biceps to her fingers. A swirling blue mist pulled and gathered up around her palms. Then an orb began to take shape between her hands.
The Ferveos got back to its feet and swayed a little before it propelled itself at her.
Jen looked up at the dragon with determination. To her, it felt like time had slowed as she focused on her energy. It pooled into a vibrant blue orb in her grasp. The orb looked like a swirling blue storm, small cracks of blue lightning firing inside the confines of the sphere. All she could hear was the steady beat of her heart, the faint bellow of the Ferveos, and the storm in her hands.
Letting out a yell, she glared as she threw her hands outward, palms facing the Ferveos. Like a beam of bright blue light, her energy shot away from her, spearheaded by the orb.
For half a second, she was elated, seeing that much power come from her. Just her. She had seen her Zaheri unleash their fair share of energy attacks, letting her see how it could be used, but she had never seen so much force come from one single hit.
And she would have been so much prouder had she aimed properly.
The sheer sound and force of the blast had startled the dragon, causing it to stop in its tracks, but the hit itself was way off her mark. She hadn’t focused on where the attack was supposed to go. In that moment, she had only focused on making it a powerful attack, nothing more. Too much aggression and not enough thought about where the hit was supposed to land.
Suddenly the whole learn-how-to-swing-a-sword thing made complete sense.
Her massive energy attack did surge forward, and it did hit the dragon, but it didn’t collide with its chest like she had intended. Instead, it had flown toward the left of the beast, smashing into its shoulder. She saw a chunk of the shoulder disintegrate in the path of her attack. It caught a fair chunk of the Ferveos’ right wing and tore it to shreds. Bone cracked and splintered, skin tore and scales were thrown asunder, flesh ripped away and was sent flying. The force of the blow sent the large dragon hurtling backward, tumbling a bit in the process.
But it wasn’t enough to kill it.
As things settled slightly and the dragon struggled to its feet, Jen dropped her arms dejectedly at her sides and burst out, “Dang it!”
The Ferveos regained its footing, and despite the pain it was sure to be feeling with missing a wing and having a chunk of its shoulder torn off, it ran at her.
Jumping back into her ready stance, she prepared another energy attack. She just had to focus. Pay attention. She could do this.
Another orb pooled quickly into her hands as she fixed her eyes on the dragon and where she needed to aim. The attack didn’t feel as powerful.
Make it stronger.
No, wait. She had to make sure it went somewhere that would kill the Ferveos this time. Focus on that. But what if the attack wasn’t strong enough to rip through its scales? No, it had to be. It could be. Should she aim for its neck and sever a blood vein? Or would it be better to hit its head? No, maybe its chest.
The energy in her palm flickered as the dragon got closer. She squared her shoulders and resolved to just pick a spot and let the attack go. She could do this. She could take it down herself.
Then a sudden, loud, quick bang filled the air and pierced the chaos in front of her. A pale blue light shot through the Ferveos’ skull, right at the crest of its forehead, and out the back; its spine severed in the process.
Tumbling forward, the dead dragon fell with a low moan.
Jen watched the beast fall and took a few steps back to avoid getting crushed. Her concentration disappeared from her energy, so it evaporated from her hand. The rumble of the earth from the heavy beast’s fall evaporated into small aftershocks. Steam rose from the holes in its skull.
She sighed and watched the vapor exhale from her mouth and rise into the sky. If she was going to start an argument with Tyron, she had to at least appear semi-collected. Even though it wasn’t fair. She had been so close to finishing it on her own, and he had cheated. And he was such a freaking know-it-all.
Slowly, she turned and saw Tyron hand the sniper rifle back to Krelien, who in turn took the gun and stepped back a few paces.
She marched up to Tyron, fists clenched at her sides. The spikes disappeared back into her arms. Chewing her lip, she jumped up and over the stone wall and ardently kept her eyes off him. For half a second, she considered just doing the silent treatment.
But no.
Nope. She was going to speak her mind and let him know exactly what she thought.
She pursed her lips and shifted her gaze to his with a glare. Tyron returned her glare with a placid expression. Krelien flicked his eyes between them a few times as he clutched his rifle.
“Why did you do that?” she asked quietly, her jaw still tight.
“You faltered,” he said simply. “I wasn’t going to let—”
“I was being a weapon! Like you said!” she exploded. “Testing out my abilities and learning how to use my energy! I was even thinking about that stupid—” she motioned her arms forward as though jabbing with an invisible sword “—sword, training thing you had me doing earlier! I was learning!” She pointed to her head.
Tyron stared down at her, his face even and almost bored. “I got that.”
“And then you go and, and, what? Get Krelien to come over so you can take his gun to prove I’m not ready for this?”
“Technically, he came over when you started manifesting the first attack,” Tyron said nonchalantly. “I only took the rifle when he offered it.”
Krelien’s eyes widened as Jen looked at him in an incredulous way. He pointed to his leader and said, “He just took it; no offering involved.”
Jen’s face contorted, and she waved at Krelien dismissively before she looked back to Tyron. “Why would you do that? You said I wouldn’t always have a gun, and then you go and pull out a freaking gun?”
“I wasn’t going to let you get killed because of pride,” Tyron said, a stern expression coming to his face. “I had to make a call, and I saw you falter in your second manifest.”
“It was only for a second!” She flung her arms outward.
“A second of hesitation can cause any number of mistakes to happen on the battlefield!” He pointed behind her. “And that second of doubt can lead to someone’s death. It’s not only your life you’re going to be protecting in these instances; there’s usually other potential casualties. You will learn this in time.” His tone was loud, stern, and almost cold.
“I had things—”
“No, you didn’t. You think you did, but you had nothing under control, least of all your energy.”
“I could have—”
“No, Jen,” Tyron said with finality, “you couldn’t.” He held her angry gaze with his own look of determination, and when she looked to the ground, he said, “We’re done for the night.”
Jen snapped her head up, and in that instant, she didn’t look as angry. Instead, she looked pleading. “But—”
“Now, Jen. Go get on the bike.” He pointed back up the road where he had left the motorcycle.
Her expression was a mixture of frustration, disappointment, and shame as she crossed her arms and stalked off to where Tyron had pointed.
He kept himself pointed toward the now empty space in front of him and closed his eyes with a short breath. Once she had been gone for a few seconds, he turned to look after her, and his features softened to a frown.
Behind him, Krelien still clutched the sniper rifle as Ar’on joined them and asked, “Why didn’t you—”
“Later,” Tyron cut him off.
“But it was really strong,” Krelien said, relaxing his grip on the gun.
With a sigh, Tyron turned to them and asked, “How did things look from your point?”
“Krelien kept yelling at me that she was forming an orb, like that would somehow stop her,” Ar’on said as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Did not,” Krelien whined.
Tyron ran a hand down his face. “That came too close.”
“I think we are long overdue for Jennifer to utilize that portion of her skills,” Blaze interjected as she and Archer came to stand with them. The white grovix sat down and added, “She likely would have been capable of handling the end of that confrontation on her own.”
With a glance over at Blaze, Tyron said, “She’s too young.”
“Yeah, well, that’s true,” Archer said as Tyron started toward the cycle. “But you gotta admit, she’s good for her age.”
“She is indeed decades ahead of her peers,” Blaze offered.
“What peers?” Krelien asked. “Other humans? They can’t make energy.”
Archer opened his mouth to respond, but Blaze tapped her paw against his and said, “No, it is past his bedtime, and you know how he gets with this line of questioning.”
“Ah, right,” Archer said with a nod.
Ar’on followed Tyron and whispered with a stern look, “You did the right thing.” He raised his brow. “You should have done it sooner.”
Tyron stopped and was about to answer when the horn of his motorcycle cut through the air. He turned as Jen raised her hands angrily.
“Is this an intro to parenting?” he asked as an aside.
“How would I know?” Ar’on grumbled.
“Do me a favor and get that thing moved and out of sight, quickly. The farmers nearby are bound to have heard all of that. Get Kaldok to help.” He pointed toward the dead Ferveos on the ground before he hastened to his parked cycle.
“Right,” Krelien said as he draped his rifle across his shoulders and leaned back lackadaisically. He grinned to Archer and asked, “Hey Arch, you hungry for beef?”
Archer looked between Krelien and the half-masticated cow a few times. “I could eat.”
“The question is, are you gonna?”
“Probably not.”
“C’mon, it’s fresh meat. Where’s bad?”
With a roll of her eyes, Blaze said, “What Archer is neglecting to state is the fact that the Ferveos already consumed the best parts.”
Krelien looked back to the dead animal and gave it a solid moment’s stare. “Okay, so, how’re we gonna explain the half-eaten cow? Marvins half-abducting it?”
“That sounds like a bad story, even for Earth,” Kaldok said as he appeared at his side.
Krelien jumped in surprise as Kaldok walked past him. His head was wolf-like in structure, and his arms and hands were furred. He had paws more than hands with sharp claws that sat just underneath the surface of his fingers. His ears pivoted around and twitched as his dark brown eyes surveyed his team members. Kaldok stood upright, unlike most werewolves, and wore clothing.
“Don’t do that!” the Jumper yelled at the werewolf.
Archer smirked. “It’s about time you know how we feel when you pop up out of nowhere.”
“And we should just take the cow back to the portal with the Ferveos. Problem solved,” Kaldok said.
“Sound decision Kaldok,” Blaze said with a nod of approval. She gave Krelien a disappointed stare. “It is not always necessary for you to concoct absurd schemes to accomplish your goals.”
Wearing a look of annoyance, Krelien gestured toward the dead creatures. “Just help me with this, will ya?”
“How am I supposed to help?” Archer asked.
“He has a point,” Kaldok said with a smile.
As the three walked off and continued to argue over the minutia of their assignment, Ar’on stepped up to Blaze and asked, “Any thoughts?”
The white grovix’s red eyes flashed up to him before she stood and said, “Still processing. I will defer to you when I believe there is something of merit to note.” With that, she walked after the other three.
Ar’on stared after the white grovix, muttering, “Gee, thanks for that insight, Blaze.” He followed after the group and growled, “And would you three stop bickering?”
