I was ready for her next attack, but that didn’t make it much easier to block. She stabbed at my right side, likely trying to avoid the shield on my left arm. I was able to get my sword inside her stab and her blade ran against mine. Even just scraping against her sword made it feel like mine was going to break into a million pieces. I had no idea if I was more impressed with her strength or the strength of my Shimmer creations.
She was so close and still managed to move so fast. It was incredible. I felt like a statue being hunted by a force of nature. I couldn’t see exactly what she did, but she managed to disarm me doing whatever it was. My sword clattered helplessly to the ground as her hand locked in a vice grip on my arm. Her sword was aimed directly at my neck.
I didn’t want to wait around to see how far sparring with Val might go, so I broke the armor down on my right arm and pulled it away. I thought it was a clever use of my powers. Maybe it would have been clever enough to stop someone who wasn’t used to the hellish nightmare of a man training her to be an efficient killing machine. In the time between me breaking down the armor on my arm and putting it back up, Val cut my right arm by picking up my discarded sword and throwing it at me.
A blunder on my part? Absolutely, yes. But at the same time, I created a sword in the air behind her, slashing the back of her left thigh.
Wincing, she took a step back, trying to look at the damage I did. Sighing, she mumbled, “I miss armor so much.”
“I’m sorry,” I said in a hurry. “Are you okay?”
“That’s what you need to do more of,” she said, ignoring my question and concern for her safety completely. “My Anomalies enhance my physical strength and let me fly, so I’m not much use in a long-range fight, and I have no protection. You need to use that to your advantage.”
“I understand, but how bad is the wound?” I asked. She ran her bare hand across the back of her leg. It came back covered in blood.
“You got me good. I got your arm good. Not a bad trade.” Even with the praise, Val shook her head. “I don’t know what you were thinking there. Do not take off your armor under any circumstances. If you did that for your entire body, I could have run my sword through your neck.”
“I was trying to get away,” I muttered. The pain from the cut was starting to set in during the brief stoppage which allowed my adrenaline to die down.
“I know what you were doing. I know why you did it. That doesn’t make it a good idea.” She stopped to kick out her wounded leg with a pained grimace, flicking some droplets of blood on the ground. “You have too many tools at your disposal to give away your defense just because I got close.”
“Right, keep my defense up. Got it.” I took a few seconds of replaying it in my head to really try and drill it home. “What would you recommend I do next time?”
She looked a little surprised. Maybe she hadn’t been expecting me to agree without making it a fight. She waved me over and put us up in the same position we had been in before I broke free from her grasp. Without the speed and chaos of her moving a million miles per hour around me, it didn’t seem that bad. She had my arm in a tight grip, sure, but it wasn’t like I lost control of any other part of my body or Anomaly.
“You won’t know what everyone does when you first fight them. That means you have a strong advantage when we fight. You know what I can do better than you would some stranger. So, think, what could you do here?” A lot of the menacing fire was gone from her eyes, replaced by something that looked an awful lot like eagerness to teach, making her easier to handle. “Even if it’s a bad idea, throw it at me. I’ll tell you if it is and what you can improve. A lot of good can come from simply fixing up bad ideas.”
“I could try blocking with my shield,” I offered. I put it up in front of me, protecting my neck and chest.
“Sure, you could give that a try. There are worse plans you could have come up with.” She gently poked the tip of her sword against my shield. “Say you block this while I’m holding your arm. Your armor is strong, but you’re not getting out of this by just blocking. If I hit you with everything I had and kept my grip, you could have your shoulder dislocated.”
“That’s true.” I thought for a second. “I could hit you with the shield?”
“Here, try it.” She pulled her sword back to give me a little more space. “Don’t worry, I can take it. If you do any serious damage, we’ll get it healed anyway.”
I didn’t feel great about it. Again, something about hitting a woman with a lot of exposed skin didn’t sit right with me. Still, I trusted her to know what she could and couldn’t handle in a fight, so I slammed my shield into her chest with everything I had. She flinched and momentarily lost her balance. Her grip on me still didn’t loosen. Her stumbling nearly pulled me down with her.
“Better!” Careful not to cut us to ribbons by flailing her sword around, she put a fist against the space between her neck and breasts. “Doing serious damage to someone’s chest can kill them. Sternum fractures are no joke. If you hit someone where their heart is, that can cause a world of trouble too. It doesn’t have to be all about stabbing and slashing. Simple, blunt force is a weapon too. A hammer can be just as valuable as a sword.”
“I didn’t do that to you, right? Break your sternum, I mean.” I was terrified she was just going to suddenly drop to the ground.
“No, you didn’t get as much power as you’d want.” That was news to me since I certainly tried to get as much power as I wanted. She moved my right arm a little and motioned toward it with her eyes. “Here, I’ll help you some. Where is your right hand at this moment?”
“Uh, about at your armpit.”
“Correct. With your hand there, what can you do when you can’t move it?”
“Get your body odor all over my armor?”
“Ethan, come on, seriously.” She looked annoyed and frustrated, though the corners of her mouth twitched upward for a moment. “You have so much freedom with your power that it’s all about how you think to use it. Teaching you how to fight with swords is pointless. You’re never entering an even duel with your weapons, so as long you know how to swing without hurting yourself, I think you’ll be fine there. Despite what Alex might think, there are no fair rules in a fight of life or death. Don’t fight me like you want to clash blades with me and beat me in a sword fight. That is a battle you aren’t going to win. If I’m holding you like this, my offense is limited, but you can just make a new weapon in your hand.”
“Oh! It’ll stab you.” I felt stupid that something so simple didn’t cross my mind, especially after how I thought I had been clever with my Anomaly use.
“Exactly. Try it and be careful. This one could actually kill me if you’re a little too reckless.” Val waited patiently. Like before, I didn’t want to do it, but I followed her command for the sake of trying to learn and improve my skills. I made a small blade at first, slowly increasing its size until it was big enough to cut through her sports bra and into her skin, drawing fresh blood from the wound.
“Like that?”
“Exactly.” The woman didn’t even wince from the wound. She let go of my arm. “Of course, you would need to be faster and more forceful with it in a real fight. Don’t forget, that’s free access to a vital part of the body. If the blade you make is bigger, you can destroy their heart if you aim it right. I’d only put the chest behind the head and neck on the list of areas I’d want access to if I needed to beat someone quickly.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“You’re...better at teaching than I expected.”
Val looked down to her side, her hair casting a shadow over her eyes. “I was trained to know exactly how to kill people with my strange powers. The rules we follow when killing can be completely different than the rules a normal person follows. It took self-study to learn how to keep people alive instead of ending lives. That’s why I’m mad you threw away your armor.”
“I’m sorry, I get what you’re saying now.”
“Don’t use it just for that. Your Anomaly has a lot of uses. It’s probably the most versatile next to Lizzy’s. It’s only your brain that has to catch up to realize its full potential.” She pointed to the side of her head. “You can create weapons nearly anywhere and use them. Seriously, there aren’t going to be any rules against McLeod, so if you see the chance to stab him in the back with a sword from a hundred feet away, you need to take it.”
“I will, I promise.”
“But you need to be conscious of how you’re using your power. If you can have seven swords moving around me at one time, that gives you seven more ways to beat me, or even keep me in one spot. If I disarm your sword, don’t just leave it for me to use as a weapon against you. You have to destroy it if you aren’t using it. And I really need to make sure you understand that you don’t disengage your armor. You could have had your arm cut off.”
I tried to follow what she told me after that. I kept my armor up. If I lost a weapon, I tried to either use it or destroy it entirely. I created a bunch of swords and spears that hovered around us and would use those to strike when I saw an opening. We were both slowing down from the effort we were putting in, which made it easier to see the other’s attacks. As a consequence, us slowing down made it harder for us to react to what the other was trying to do.
“Timeout!” Lori yelled from the other side of the gym. It felt like we’d only been going for maybe fifteen minutes, but it was apparently longer. “It’s been almost two hours and you’re both pretty beat up.”
I knew I was, but when I looked down, I was in worse shape than I thought. Cuts and the early signs of bruising were all over the front of my arms and legs. I couldn’t see my back, but I could feel it, and I was pretty sure it didn’t look much better. Despite my best efforts, I hadn’t been perfect when it came to keeping my armor around me when fighting against someone of Val’s strength. With the leader finally calling a timeout, I disengaged my armor and sat down, rubbing the back of my head. The base of my skull had started to tingle like it always did when I was pushing it a little too far with my power.
Val probably had it worse than I did. Without her armor, she was naturally more susceptible to damage. Dozens of cuts and scratches marked her pale skin, dotting it with blood both wet and dry. To her credit, she didn’t look too bothered by all of the wounds. She wiped sweat off her forehead and pulled her hair back, taking in some deep breaths.
“Let’s call it for today,” Lori said. She walked over to me and knelt next to me. “If you cut her anymore, her clothes are going to fall off and she’s going to be naked.”
Another glance at Val showed tears all over her yoga pants and sports bra, and I suddenly felt extremely embarrassed about it. My shirt and shorts were shredded too, but I still had more clothing to keep me modest. Feeling my embarrassment, Lori just laughed and patted me on the back. For what it was worth, Val didn’t seem to care much. I got the impression that modesty when it came to clothing wasn’t at the top of her list of priorities in life.
“Always a gentleman when the ladies are involved.”
Val came over and offered me a hand, a gesture I appreciated and took. She effortlessly got me to my feet with her enhanced strength. I knew she’d been holding back a little. Someone with her strength and speed could have floored me from the very beginning. I wasn’t going to start pointing any fingers or making accusations. If she held back, she probably did it to give me as much as I could handle so I could learn how to fight better.
“You took everything well,” she said. Val looked a little shy. “I thought you’d push back more when I pointed out the things you could do better.”
“Nah.” I held out a fist that Val cautiously bumped with her own “Pride rarely helps, but it sure can hurt. You’re the one who’s been closest to McLeod, so you know what you’re talking about. I knew I had some holes anyway.”
“You still do,” Lori and Val said at the same time.
“I’ll keep working at it,” I promised the girls.
Lori looked at Val and nervously chewed her lip. “I don’t know if we’re ready yet. Do you have anything on McLeod you can give us? Anything at all? Even if it’s some random fact that you would have otherwise forgotten.”
Val took another deep breath. “I’m sorry, he kept a lot to himself. I think I mentioned some of it before, but he didn’t really keep the people who worked for or with him around each other. Easier to keep people from banding together against him. The only things I know for sure are that McLeod loves the theatrics he uses as a display of his power and Heather started spiraling after her brother died.”
“Her anger was surprisingly easy to use against her in Arizona.” I tried to push the hateful glares she gave me out of my mind. “I thought she’d hold a grudge after what happened. I didn’t know it would be like that. Exploiting it got me a lot farther than I thought it would. Do you think there’s anything else we could use against her?”
“I know she has a daughter,” Val said. “I think she’s around six. I couldn’t say for sure. Heather’s been around McLeod almost as long as I was, and I didn’t learn that bit of information until a few months before we fought in the Tomb.”
“Well, we’re not going to physically use her daughter against her, even if we could get our hands on her.” Lori paused in the awkward silence. “That just sounded gross. Kids are off the table, so no going there. If her brother is a pain point, I’d stick with that. People are dangerous when mad, but you can turn that against them. Give it a try if you face her again. Just don’t make it your main tactic in case she’s harder to provoke the second time around.”
Val’s eyes lit up as the light bulb went off over her head “He loves Thanksgiving! Shit, how could I not remember that?”
“What? McLeod does?” Lori asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously, he loves Turkey Day of all things?”
“Yes, he does. I didn’t think much of it until I started digging around in my head. Other holidays he never really cared about. Even Independence Day, a day I thought he’d like because it’s celebrating freedom, he doesn’t care much about. Maybe Thanksgiving means something special to him personally. Or maybe he just likes to feast like a king. I’m not sure. It was the only day of the year that he made feel bigger than any other. Birthdays didn’t matter. Days where he succeeded, like with Vancouver, didn’t matter. Thanksgiving always mattered.”
Lori started to chew one of her nails, her brow furrowing. “Do you think he’ll attack on Thanksgiving? If he does, there wouldn’t be as many people out on the roads.”
“If there was a day coming up that meant the most to him and he’d want to use it to make a statement, I’d bet my life on it being that one.” Despite the confidence of her words, Val didn’t seem entirely sure of herself. “He does things how he wants, so he could choose a random day. I think killing Ethan would be high up on what he wants to do, so an important day to do it on would be a big deal. I think if you had to circle a date, it’d be then.”
“That’d give us roughly a month.” Lori looked up at me. “How much do you think you can improve by then?”
“Well, if I keep up like this, I think I’ll get better. How good I’ll end up is something I’m unsure of.” I nodded toward Val. “Really, how much better can we get by then?”
“A month is a long time, but it isn’t any time at all either,” Val said. “I think it should be used to refine what you’ve learned and making sure you’re in the best shape you can be. At the very least, we can use that time to undo some bad habits if you have any.”
“Lori, can you get together with our alien friends and see if they want to do any joint trainings or something? I feel bad that I haven’t been in touch with them since Chloe took them in.”
If there was any group that could get us used to a few surprises, it was them. When it came to how Val and Sven moved and fought, there hadn’t been as many differences as I thought there would. That made some sense to me. They may have both been experts fighting with their weapons, but there was only so much you could advance fighting with a sword before you hit the limit of what it could achieve. With Sven’s sword having some unique properties, I still thought it would make for a unique and invaluable training tool.
“I’ll get that done and I’ll get Val some armor.” Lori pulled out her phone and made a few notes. “These past few weeks have seriously flown by. We’ll need to keep our heads in the game if Val’s right. If Thanksgiving is the day McLeod decides to attack, then we'll need to be as ready as we can.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over the gym, leaving just the buzz of the lights and the faint chirping from the birds outside. We’d all been in dangerous positions before, ones that could have cost us our lives, but it almost felt like we were living in a fairy tale. McLeod was the real deal, and I knew that from experience. Even thinking about him again made the scar on my left arm ache.
“Don’t let it bring you down too much. I think we can pull it off.”
“You think so?” I asked. Val didn’t seem to be oozing confidence either.
Lori shrugged. “We don’t have much of a choice, do we? Don’t think about it right now. Let’s get you two fixed up and you can go home for the rest of the day.”