Children Of Deurom

Chapter 9| Erupt

     The sun had begun to set by the time Adonis dropped Aidan off at the apartment. He knew he was running late to training so he hastefully said goodbye to his brother and ran inside to get changed. Aidan ran out of the apartment, still putting on a tank top and ran all the way to the factory. When he opened the door, Cloe and Joan were working on defensive movement, while Nolan was doing the same sword exercises as he had gone over with Aidan the other day. Arminius was in the corner with Nolan and Ian, observing. He didn’t seem too pleased to see Aidan. He walks over to greet him.

            “I’m sorry I’m—” Aidan began.

            “45 minutes late?” Arminius cuts him off, Aidan was trying to figure it if it was agitation or anger that was hinted in his voice. “We’re gonna start with some sparring today,” Arminius informs him as he rolls up his sleeves.

            “So you’re not mad?” Aidan asks, only to be answered with being hit with a fireball straight to the chest which sends him flying across the factory.

            “Remember how I said contenders aren’t allowed to harm or kill someone else’s fighter?” Arminius asks, walking towards Aidan. Aidan starts trying to get to his feet, his shirt now dawning a singed hole in the middle of it. “Well, contenders actually CAN’T kill their own fighters. I mean it’s actually impossible.” He throws another fireball at Aidan, who manages to roll out of the way in time to avoid it.

            “I’m gonna take that as a yes, on the being mad,” Aidan whispers to himself as he stands up. Arminius cracks his necks, and his hands engulf. Joan and Chloe stop their training and begin to wander over.

            “Arminius,” Joan calls out. “Isn’t this a bit extreme for such early stages of training?”

            “Well I mean, obviously Aidan just knows how to win.” Arminius retorts throwing another fireball at Aidan, who again manages to dodge out of the way. “That’s why he was late to training…when I explicitly told him to be on time!” Aidan attempts to put out his shirt which was now on fire. Though it couldn’t burn him there was no need for anything else to catch on fire. He was too late however and discardes the chared and destroyed tank top.

            “Yeah, well you should be on my time!” Aidan yells back. “I’m the one risking my life for your precious seat, so I should show up when I feel like it!” To everyone’s surprise, Aidan throws a fireball back at Arminius and hits him in the face, imitating a shove to his face. Arminius faces back to Aidan and fires another fireball at him. This time Aidan shoots one back and the two hit each other and go out. Arminius fires a fire blast which slams into Aidan and pins him against the wall. Aidan moves his hands and pushes against the stream of fire, and as he does, he begins to fire a flame against Arminius’. Arminius looks on in shock, unaware Aidan was able to even do that, he certainly didn’t manage that the other day. Aidan wasn’t able to keep it up though, and he knew it. Aidan manages to push the fire back, relieving some of the pressure off himself, Aidan rolls out of the way of the blast and stands to face Arminius.

            “Clever.” Arminius praises. At this point, Ian and Nolan have also stopped their training and have gone to investigate the commotion. “But not clever enough.” Arminius throws a small fireball at Aidan when Aidan went to dodge, Arminius threw another one into the direction. It hits Aidan mid-dodge, sliding him back across to the wall. Aidan begins to get up, but Arminius walks over to him. He grabs Aidan by the scruff of his neck and engulfs his hand, delivering a swift punch to Aidan’s abdomen. He shoves Aidan and pins him against the back wall. “I have to know. Why aren’t you taking this seriously?” Arminius asks, Aidan now realizing it was defiantly agitation in his voice.

            “I am taking it seriously,” Aidan replies.

            “No, you’re not.” Arminius snaps back. “You hold back in practice, trust me I can tell. And you were late.”

            “Oh woopdie doo.” Aidan mocks. “One time.”

            “One time breeds bad behavior,” Arminius responds. “My goal is to you keep you alive, I can’t have you be late at all. It wastes precious training time.”

            “Your goal is to get your seat.” Aidan snaps back. “Be honest you don’t care about me. You don’t care about Chloe or Ian. We’re all just tools for you guys.” Arminius looked genuinely hurt by the comment.

            “Believe it or not I do care.” He replies. “You’re my responsibility.”

            “Stop with the speech, alright?” Aidan tells him. “I’m not your responsibility. The only reason you care is because you want me to win. I train with you in the morning, I started training with Nolan at school. I’m doing what you want! So I don’t think showing up late to training one time, because I was with my brother…who I haven’t seen in months and may never see again, has merited the ass kicking or your shitty attitude!” Arminius stares at Aidan and releases him from the wall, Aidan sinks to the floor and watches as Arminius shakes his head and walks towards the exit.

            “Arminius, where are you going?” Joan asks, stepping towards him.

            “We’re done for the day.” Arminius groans as he exits the factory. Nolan rushes over to check on Aidan, Chloe and Ian stand still, reeling from the current events.

            “Are you ok?” Nolan asks. Aidan nods his head and Nolan rushes to the exit to go after Arminius.

            “Nolan,” Joan calls out, he stops in his tracks. “Look after them, I’ll go after him.” Nolan didn’t understand exactly why Joan volunteered, but he accepted it. Joan whispers something to Chloe and leaves after Arminius. Ian and Chloe now go over and check on Aidan. Who looks around, embarrassed.

            “I’m sorry.” Aidan apologizes. “I should have just shut up and done the training.”  Ian takes a seat next to Aidan and chuckles.

            “Good ‘ole Kessler temper, huh?” He asks. Ian and Aidan laugh, knowing Aidan for as long as he has, Ian has seen the Kessler temper in action before. Aidan looks up at Chloe, more embarrassed at acting up in front of her than anyone else.

            “I’m sorry.” He apologizes again. Chloe sits down on the opposite side of Aidan as Ian.

            “Nothing to be sorry about.” She tells him. “Arminius reacted pretty poorly… no offense.”

            “None taken,” Aidan replied. Ian and Chloe help Aidan to his feet, Nolan goes over to one of the corners and grabs something off the floor. “What’s that?” Aidan asks.

            “It’s nothing,” Nolan replies, sticking the item into his pocket and walking out of the factory.

            “It’s Arminius’ phone,” Ian whispers to Aidan. “Chucked it after 20 minutes went by.”

            I didn’t tell him I was gonna be late. I never told him that I was ok.” Aidan realized. Ian helped Aidan out of the factory with Chloe close in hand, Nolan was waiting for them outside.

            “I’m going to walk back to the apartment, see if I can’t catch up to them,” Nolan informs Aidan, referring to Arminius and Joan. “Ian, take Aidan and Chloe home.” He then turns to Chloe, “I’ll drop Joan off at your place later tonight.”

            “Sounds like a plan,” Ian replies, helping Aidan into his car. Ian drops Aidan off first, with Chloe assisting as much as she could. When Aidan got into the house he was kind of hoping Arminius was on the couch, so he could apologize for what happened today. But to Aidan’s surprise and disappointment, he wasn’t there. Aidan broke away from Ian and Chloe, insisting he was fine and that it was getting late. After they left, Aidan wobbled into the bathroom and started the tub, hoping a soak would ease his soreness. He sat and began to reflect on the past week and the training he had done with Arminius. He realized how strict the schedule was during the past week, how he had kept Aidan mainly inside during his recovery. No matter how much he begged and pleaded to go somewhere, even if it was just to Ian’s house. Arminius had insisted he stay in the house. Aidan had always assumed it was just to keep up the cover of a chest cold, but what if it wasn’t? He pulls himself out of the tub, dries off, and stumbles to bed. He sits down on his bed, trying to get the motivation to swing his legs over when his cell phone rings.

            Must be Arminius. He thought. He looked at the caller ID to see it was Chloe, and the disappointment of it not being Arminius didn’t stagger. “Hey you,”

            “Hey I was just calling to make sure you got setteled ok.”

            “Oh yeah, no problems at all.”

            “Did you guys talk it out?” She asks, Aidan can sense the concern in her voice.

            “He’s not here.” He replies. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

            “Well that’s good,” She answers awkwardly. The two hang on the line waiting for the other to say something. “Well I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

            “Yup same time and place,” Aidan face palms, disappointed at his attempts to mimic his brother’s deamenor. But it did get a chuckle out of Chloe, so Aidan marked it into the win column. Tomorrow! The auction! “Hey uh Chloe?”

            “Yeah?”

            “So listen,” He starts off. I really wish this was a bit easier. “I know a lot kinda happened today and I know this is super last minute but tomorrow night my brother is having this big archilogical auction and he left me a spare ticket,” Aidan waits to see Chloe’s reaction.

            “Oh?”

            “Yeah, so I was kinda hoping…maybe you’d…like to go? With me?” Aidan waits a few agonizing moments before finalling hearing.

            “I’d love to,” Aidan c***s his fist back in show of victory, while simotaniously groaning in pain. “What time?”

            “I figured we could go right after training?”

            “Sounds good, I’m already looking forward to it.”

            “Ok cool…cool.”

            “Good night Aidan,”

            “Good night Chloe,” Aidan hangs up the phone and collapses onto the bed. His achy body felt a wave of coolness onto the bed sheets, as soon as Aidan’s head hit the pillow, he was out cold, and for the first time with a smile on his face. Aidan awoke the next morning feeling less sore than he had been after falling asleep. He checked himself in the mirror to find what had been forming to be dark bruises on his torso, were light as if they had healed almost completely overnight. Aidan walked into the kitchen, expected to find Arminius making coffee, but he was disappointed as his kitchen was bare. Aidan investigated the living room as well, only to find it was also void of his trainer.      

            His stuff is still in the corner. He just must not have come home last night. Aidan assumed. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and went about his normal routine, which began with jogging to the factory. Maybe he left early this morning. Aidan thought. Maybe he’s waiting for me at the factory. But, Aidan’s disappointment piled on when he walked through the doors of the factory to find it empty. Aidan walks around the empty space of the warehouse, recalling the events of last night. Arminius’ words ringing in his head,

            Believe it or not, I do care. You’re my responsibility. Aidan fires a fireball out of frustration, smacking the wall adjacent to him. He decides the best way to take his frustration out would be to do some target practice. He sets up the trash cans as Arminius had the other day and wandered around the factory, finding miscellaneous crates and boxes. He begins to move them around the factory until he had created a bit of an obstacle course, placing his phone at the finish line, with a stopwatch on it. Aidan enables the delayed start feature and walks back to the start of the course. As soon as the timer sounded, Aidan ran the obstacle course, jumping over and moving around objects as he fired fireballs at the trashcans as he passed. He turns off the timer and looks around, the smell of singed metal filling his nostrils. He had managed to knock over a good amount of the trash cans but it wasn’t all of them, Aidan also wasn’t too impressed with his time either.

            “Impressive.” Praised a familiar voice behind him, Aidan turns around to see Arminius closing the door behind him as he enters the warehouse. “I thought I’d find you here.” Aidan wipes the sweat from his forehead and walks over to the can he had hit, positioning them back upwards.

            “I can do better,” Aidan replies. A thick fog of awkwardness fills the factory, suffocating both Aidan and Arminius. Aidan sits down on one of the platforms in the factory and runs his hands through his hair. Trying to find words to cleanse the air, and figures simple is best. “I’m sorry.” Aidan apologizes. Arminius, who was pandering around the factory, turns his attention to Aidan. “I should have at least let you know I was going to be late. And I defiantly shouldn’t have mouthed off.”

            “I apologize as well,” Arminius replies. “I could have handled the situation better than blasting you across the room.” Aidan chuckles and hops down from the platform.

            “Two guys with tempers training to fight.” Aidan chuckles. “Don’t see what could go wrong with that.” Arminius lightly chuckles in response and helps Aidan set up the remaining trash cans that had fallen.

            “Your aim needs a bit of work,” Arminius observes. “You did good creating the fire on the fly. Just work on the aiming.”

            “Maybe something to work on tonight?” Aidan asks, hoping to quickly put his and Arminius’ conflict behind them.

            “Not tonight,” Arminius replies. “I need to run an errand, Joan is going to be doing some very light sparring exercises with Nolan.”

            “Oh,” Aidan replies, slightly disappointed.

            “I know that makes me a bit hypocritical. But trust me it’s important.” Arminius tells him putting the last can back into place.

            “Something about the Games?” Aidan asks. Arminius takes the phone from Aidan and walks away from him.

            “Something like that,” Arminius responds vaguely. “You ready?” Aidan heads back to where he had begun and once prepares himself to run the course again. “Go,” Arminius commands, clicking the stopwatch timer on Aidan’s phone. Aidan runs the course a bit more confidently this time, making sure to aim at the trash cans. By the time he had completed the course, all of the cans had been hit. Aidan walks back to Arminius, a big grin on his face.

            “I hit all the cans.” Aidan proclaims. Arminius flashes the phone to Aidan, and his smirk evaporates.

            “You exchanged speed for accuracy,” Arminius tells him. “But not bad.” Arminius gives Aidan back his phone and begins to head for the entrance.

            “That’s it?” Aidan asks.

            “For now,” Arminius responds. “Better get an early start to school. I’m assuming you have some work to catch up on.” Arminius begins to jog back to the apartment, Aidan follows close in tow. He arrived home to Ian sitting in his living room.

            “Dude,” Ian says. “We’re gonna be late.” Aidan rushes into his bedroom calling back to Ian.

            “My bad! I’ll be right out.” Aidan quickly hops in the shower and quickly rinsed himself off. Aidan then haste-fully dries himself off and gets dressed, his clothes sticking to the remaining wet parts of his body. He runs out the door without saying anything to either Arminius or Ian, but Ian knew to rush out after him. The two jump into Ian’s car, Arminius watches from the window as the car peels out of the driveway. Ian pulls in swiftly to a parking spot in the school’s lot, the screeching of his tires ring in their’s ears as they hop out of the car and run into the school. The two separate to their respective classrooms, Aidan slides into his desk just as the bell rings. The substitute came in, shortly followed by Nolan who once again pulled Aidan from class. Aidan left with Nolan and the two entered the gym, to begin with, the sword training.

            “If this keeps up I’m defiantly gonna fail biology.” Aidan remarks as Nolan locks the gym doors behind them. Ignoring Aidan’s remark, Nolan tosses Aidan two rolls of wraps which he catches, Aidan is a bit caught off guard by the weight they had behind them. “Weighted straps?” Aidan inquires.

            “We don’t have much time,” Nolan replies as he retrieves the wooden swords from there hiding spaces. “We don’t know when the Games are going to be called but we could expect it to be soon. So you’ll have to—”

            “What do you mean they’re gonna start soon?” Aidan asks grabbing one of the swords from Nolan. “We like just started training, I mean I’ve only been at this for like a week.”

            “True, but we were also a bit late to the party,” Nolan replies. “So as I was saying. You’re going to need to be prepared. The weighted straps will help you adjust to swinging around the actual sword.”

            “Didn’t have any problem swinging it at Lucas.”

            “Of course not,” Nolan replies. “Your adrenaline was pumping, fight or flight was in overdrive. But on the battlefield, that won’t entirely be the case. There will be times when you need to stop and think instead of purely reacting. Just put the damn things on.” Aidan does as was requested and put on the straps and started to swing around the wooden sword. He immediately feels the difference in weight, the wooden sword that had weighed maybe five pounds before, now felt ten times heavier. Nolan immediately launches himself at Aidan, who only is just able to throw his sword up.

            “What the hell?!” Aidan agitatedly asks. “A heads up would have been nice!”

            “Your opponent isn’t going to give you a heads up,” Nolan replies. “So suck it up buttercup.” Nolan continues to try and hit Aidan, who barely manages to deflect. Aidan’s wrists begin to start growing heavier and heavier with each passing parry. Nolan attempts to jab at Aidan who pushes the sword away with fire. The wooden sword catches on fire but is carefully put out by Nolan before it could set off the fire alarm. Aidan drops the sword down to his side and is hit with a light fireball and gets sent across the floor of the gym.

            “What was that for?!” Aidan asks, picking himself up off the ground.

            “You dropped your guard,” Nolan teases. “Airgo, you got hit.” Nolan picks up the burnt sword and places it back in it’s hiding spot. “Pick up your sword and swing it around.”

            “What?” Aidan asks.

            “Think of it like you’re…. shadow boxing,” Nolan explains.

            “But with a sword?”

            “Correct,” Nolan replies. He takes a seat in the bleachers and watches as Aidan begins to practice with the sword, occasionally coming down to correct Aidan’s stance. By the time Nolan had called the session, Aidan had actually worked up a sweat.

Maybe this exercise wasn’t as ridiculous as I thought. Aidan thought to himself. He begins to unwrap the weighted straps and holds them in his hands for a bit. “Mind if I take these?” Aidan asks. Nolan walks over and grabs the sword from Aidan, walking away to put it back in it’s hiding space.

            “Go ahead,” Nolan replies. “Probably better, that way you can use them when you please.”  Aidan puts the two rolls into his pocket and begins to head towards the door with Nolan.

            “So, Nolan.” Aidan addresses his teacher with the same tone as a child who wants a toy when his parents take him to the grocery store. Nolan lets out a deep sigh as he unlocks the door to the gym.

            “Yes?”

            “Do you have any idea why Arminius is skipping practice?” Aidan asks. “I mean, considering he just kicked my ass for being late… I figured it wouldn’t be his style to skip it completely.” Nolan had actually forgotten about Aidan and Arminius’ brawl last night, he had been too focused on other matters.

            “First of all, you got your ass kicked for not keeping us informed.” Nolan replies. “Secondly, it’s personal and that’s all you need to know. Joan and I will be there, there will still be practice.” A look of disappointment takes over Aidan’s face.

            How am I supposed to trust these guys, if they can’t even tell me what’s going on? Aidan thought to himself. Nolan opens the doors and begins to walk Aidan back to class, hoping to return him before the bell.

            “Since he told you he wasn’t going to be in attendance tonight, I assume the two of you have reconciled?” Nolan asks, hoping to deflect any more questions from Aidan, who shrugs his shoulders in response.

            “I mean I guess.” He replies. “We both apologized and had our morning training.”

            “Like nothing ever happened?” Nolan asks, intrigued. He remembered his scraps with Arminius when he was alive, it would take some time before the two would even speak to each other, none the less get right back to training.

            “Yeah, basically,” Aidan replied.

            Was I really that much of a pain in the ass? Nolan thinks to himself. Or has Arminius taken a special shine to him? Could he re— Nolan’s thought is interrupted by the bell.

            “I’m gonna go ahead and grab my stuff. I’ll see you tonight.” Aidan tells Nolan as he races up the hallway to get to his classroom, while Nolan watches as he disappears in the crowd of students.

            He’s not stupid. Nolan thinks to himself. He’ll figure it out… it’s only a matter of time.