A few days later Dana reported to the practice area out near the football field for what was to be his very first combat lesson. The field was little more than a large circle of dirt with a low fence around it. Several students were already there moving through intricate patterns of movements with a staggering variety of weapons. Crates and boxes that appeared to be filled with different arms littered the outside of the field.

Lording over all the students was a massive woman, standing nearly eight feet tall with black feathered wings sprouting out of her back. Her face was covered with a bright red mask bearing a long nose protruding from the front but as she called instructions to the practicing girls the mask moved making Dana suddenly doubt it was a mask. He walked up to the woman to introduce himself but she didn’t look down at him, watching the students carefully.

“You’re Meira’s boxer, right? She told me you weren’t entirely hopeless.”

“High praise from her indeed. So how do we start?”

The bird-woman looked down at him finally, turning and leading him to one of the boxes behind her.

“Boxing is an unarmed combat… but there are some weapons that can capitalize on what you already know.” She pulled open the top of the crate, showing the options before him. “We have several choices that you could use with what you already know… brass knuckles, cestus, or even punch daggers. These will just make your punches hit harder… do more damage. Though if the dragon is what inspired you to learn more they won’t help overly much without additional magic.”

“We have here…” She opened the next crate. “Tonfas, escrima or kali sticks, even some daggers.” She lifted out a nasty-looking curved knife. “This karambit in particular can do a lot of damage. These are fast-striking weapons that while not directly translating your boxing will apply a similar strike-and-move strategy. Then there are any number of heavier weapons you can look into but besides all that.”

She swung at him while he was looking down at the crate and he pivoted quickly on his foot, redirecting the punch to pass in front of him without making contact.

“Yeah… Meira already taught me that lesson… does everyone who teaches how to fight just like getting that first cheap hit in on everyone that comes to them for help?”

The red face of the woman broke into a wide smile, letting out a low chuckle.

“I think we will get along splendidly… call me Master Whisperwind. I’ll have you in fighting shape in no time.”

“Great…” Dana said dryly. He picked up the cestus, which looked like a heavy set of gauntlets with spikes lining the knuckles. He began slipping them over his own hands. “Let’s start with the familiar. Once I’m back in practice we can graduate to the blades.”

“Sonnuva!” A tiny voice shouted from behind him causing him to turn. What he saw almost made him burst out laughing but he restrained himself as best as he could. One of his students, Twigg Greengrass, all five inches of her being a fairy, was struggling to lift the hilt of a full-sized longsword from the dirt. She had blue hair, eyes with translucent pink wings, and the most serious concentration on her face he had ever seen in all his time here.

“Everything okay, Twigg?”

The fairy looked up at him, rage in her eyes. “Everything is great. Just… strength training, that’s why I’m using a… specially heavy sword. Yeah… get my muscles nice and big.” She struck a pose, flexing her bicep proudly.

“Our little Twigg here is going to be a great warrior… and will not hear a word against it from anyone,” Whisperwind stated, her voice a curious mix of tiredness and pride at the little fairy’s stubbornness.

“Well good for you Twigg…set your own limits and don’t let anyone’s expectations define who you are going to be.” Dana grinned at her as he kept walking to where the arms master had pointed out to begin their practice.

“She’s been at it every day since school opened.” Whisperwind positioned herself across one of the circles dug into the dirt, casually flipping a stick from hand to hand. “Never moved the damn thing more than an inch but nothing will dissuade her.”

“A month ago I would have said a place like this existing would have been impossible. I’ve found my definition of the word expanding little by little every day here.” He set himself in his normal defensive posture, raising his hands into a guard position.

“Not going to learn much always playing defense… let’s see what you got Wildman…” The tengu flipped the stick in her hand into a backward grip and waited for him.

Dana moved in, feinting a few jabs trying to gauge what she could do but she refused to take the bait, not even twitching until he committed to an actual attack. He stepped in launching a 1,2,1 combo and she easily blocked the jab, ducked under his cross, and spun around him as he jabbed again. He felt her stick crack him across the shoulders, rear, and legs in quick succession. The hits stung but he could tell she wasn’t using her full strength behind the hits.

He turned back to her making a wild punch just hoping to force her into stepping back and giving him some room. The cestus was heavier than the gloves he had been used to from years back but he was adjusting. He followed up his swing with another combination, trying to keep her off balance, but she blocked or countered everything he threw at her with a cold efficiency.

The next hour was much more of the same, reducing Dana to a panting, sweating mess as he caught his breath on the bench.

“You’ve got potential, Wildman, you’re instincts are good but you stick a little too close to boxing rules still.” Whisperwind offered as she handed him a bottle of water to drink. “When fighting for your life anything you can do to confuse or off-balance your opponent is the very thing you want to do.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“I’ll do better, Master, just this has been ingrained in me as a sport so long it can be difficult to get into that mindset.” He took the water and drank almost a third in the first gulp. “I’ll get there though.”

“Mr Wilde!”

“Best do that…” The large woman took the cestus back to place with the other weapons. “Seems you are needed elsewhere right now.”

She gestured to the edge of the practice area where an eager red-skinned girl leapt up and down trying to get his attention.

“Mr Wilde! Come! We’ve got someone to move the rubble and we’re going to see what is under the library!” Akuji ran across the dirt to where he was sitting. Somehow the devil girl was wearing even less than normal, with barely a thong and tank top on as she grabbed his hand and tried to pull him along with her. “Hurry up!”

* * *

It was a fast enough walk from the practice area to the main library. Several scaffolds had been erected around the area as the rebuilding effort was well underway by this time. He could see two girls waiting for them as he and Akuji approached… one because she was immense. A fifteen-foot-tall woman with blue skin and an impatient look waiting beside Jett right near where the explosion had been shown to have happened.

The vampire girl already had her scythe out as if she was expecting trouble once they had cleared the stones away.

“I couldn’t find any record of a basement this far from the central library area on any of the plans I could find but I did find one that seemed to have been altered.” Akuji was filling him on the results of the last few days of her investigation. “Then Xiah said she could help move stuff if I found out… Never mind… she said she could help.”

“And I wasn’t about to let our favorite teacher rush into danger again without someone with him.” Jett leaned casually on the large weapon she had brought with her.

“Can we please get this over with? I have a date tonight.” The giant sighed dramatically as she lifted a chunk of the rubble. Within seconds she had moved several of the huge stone pieces uncovering a hole that dropped into darkness. “Happy devil girl? Or do you expect me to cram myself down there with you?”

“Thank you Xiah,” Akuji said curtly, holding out a manila envelope that the giant quickly snatched up. “Use it well…”

As the giant ran off with her prize in hand Dana shook his head. “Do I want to know what that was about?”

“Not if you want to keep plausible deniability… now who’s going first?”

“I’ll go,” Jett said with a smirk as she stepped into the hole, vanishing down into the darkness in an instant. “It’s only a short drop… doesn’t look like anyone down here. Hop down Mr Wilde… I’ll catch you!”

Dana shrugged to himself and stepped into the hole, dropping right away. He landed hard in Jett’s arms, the vampire cradling him in her arms. He then had to leap out of her grasp as he felt her pinching his butt, giggling to herself.

“Jett!” Dana stood, dusting himself off.

“Can’t blame a girl for taking a chance too good to pass up,” Jett smirked as she began heading down the rough-hewn hall they dropped into. With a thud, Akuji landed on the floor nearby, her tail swishing irritably behind her.

“No… thanks Jett… I’m good.” Sending the vampire a dirty look the three of them moved down the small corridor until it opened into a chamber. Gold and jewels were piled in a corner and most of the floor was made of a large circular iris closing off something below even deeper.

“Is that what I think it is?” Jett stared at the floor, moving around it as if looking for some way to open it.

“That would be my guess.” Akuji ran up, squatting by the edge of the circle, touching the cool metal with her fingers.

“Anyone care to fill me in?” Dana looked over the room… there was evidence in the walls that at one time there had been doors in this room but they had long since been cemented over.

“You’ve heard of ley lines, right?” The vampire slung her scythe onto her back.

“The magical currents that flow all over the planet. They connect powerful magical areas…some even claim they can use them to travel instantly to anywhere that is connected.”

“Of course… it’s a concept in many magical societies from ages ago to even today.”

“This is… for lack of a better term a ley pool. It’s where dozens of those lines converge. The school was built on this well, this confluence of magical energy. The strength of the magic just below us might be the most potent anywhere on Earth.”

“You could use that kind of power to do all sorts of things.” Akuji stood up, her voice tinged in awe. “Some people even think this is the key to the school if not the whole island.”

“Do you think the dragon was trying to get down here, to access the magic here?” Dana thought it over but it still didn’t sit right in his mind.

“No… that had nothing to do with it.” Yrsette’s quiet voice came from the hallway as she walked timidly into the room. “I wasn’t after anything like that.”

“Yrsette?”

“Not a lot of people know but I have a baby sister… and she, like me is more than just dragon-kin… we’re full-blood dragons.” She walked over to the pile of gold in the corner. “She’s going through a rough period… began hoarding… stealing little things and squirreling them away down here for months since she came to visit a few months back. She would even sleep on her ‘treasure’ sometimes… but it’s not her fault… All dragons go through this uncontrollable urge. It passes fairly quickly.”

“Where’s your sister now?” Akuji had already dropped back into full reporter mode, chasing details of the story.

“I sent her home… I had put an alarm spell down here to watch over her… when it went off I rushed here as soon as I could. The entrance she had dug out was ruined… I couldn’t get at it no matter how I tried.” Yrsette started crying, tears streaking down her cheeks. “I thought she was dead… buried under all that rock and then I smelled her on a girl outside.”’

“The patchwork girl I tried to drag away from the building?” Dana put his hand on the girl’s shoulder… she looked up at him, nodding.

“I would never have hurt anyone but I was running in full panic that day. So I ran, hoping no one would find out what I really was. I know dragons aren’t allowed since the draconic wars but I loved it here so much.”

“That rule is so out of date… someone should have taken it off the books decades ago,” Akuji said, absently as she scribbled on a pad of paper she had produced from who knows where.

“No… they were right…destruction follows dragons even if we don’t want it to. I’ll accept the expulsion.”

“No one is getting expelled, Yrsette. I’m not going to tell anyone what you are. Maybe I can even talk to Ruska about reviewing the rule not allowing you to attend here.”

“Really?” The dragon girl’s face lit up with joy. “You would do that for me?”

“Of course. None of this was your fault, I doubt Jett will say anything either.” Dana walked over to where Akuji was still writing and plucked the notepad from her hands, earning him a glare from the devil.

“Hey! What gives!”

“You’re not running this story yet, Akuji. Though it seems like we need to find out why that girl was sneaking down here in the first place.”

“I haven’t been able to find her anywhere at school since I saw here that day. My sister said she barely even got into the room here before running away scared.”

“Then finding her is the next step in figuring this all out.”

“If she’s anywhere on campus, I can find her,” Akuji stated, crossing her arms in front of her. “Now… notebook please.”

Dana handed her the notepad back. “Just hold off on the story until we know more, okay?”

“I won’t be sending her packing, Mr. Wilde. Don’t worry.”

The four of them left the chamber with just as many questions as they had when they entered but they knew how to proceed.