Forbidden Angel

Chapter Ten

A knock on the door is what woke me up. I had no idea what time it was because of the blackout curtains. I got out of bed to open the door. It was Rafael, and he looked happy to see me.

“Hey sorry to wake you but we have training to go to.”

“Oh hey, training?” I asked, a bit confused.

“Yeah, Caius’s orders. Come on, let’s see what you are made of.” He challenged me.

With a smirk, I closed the door and quickly dressed, tight black sports leggings and a sports bra. Thank the heavens I found running shoes, I tied my hair up and ran through the bathroom and then I was ready.

I walked with Rafael to the training room.

“You seem cheerful.” He noticed.

“Just happy not to be in the glass box.” I teased, bumping him.

We arrived at the training room. I recognized Ajax, Izzy, and Luce from the day I was brought in. They were all busy with weapons, cleaning them and testing them. Rafael gave me a nod, “So I’ll see you later. Enjoy your training.”

“You’re not staying?”

“Nooo. I have work to do but you can tell me all about it later.” He smiled and left.

I turned around and saw Caius enter from the other side of the room.

“Right, so you’ve all met Ariel, she’ll be joining us on the mission to find Rebecca. Before I clear her for the field, I need to see what she’s made of.” He looked at me.

“Are you ready for this?”

“Bring it.” I walked onto the matt, ready for whoever was willing.

“Right, Luce! Swords! The one to draw first blood wins."

Izzy threw me a sword, it immediately lit up and I could feel the angelic power radiating through it. It felt like fire moving in my body. I hope Luce was as ready as I was.

Luce reached across her body with her right hand, grips the handle of her sword, draws it out and points it at me. She then places her left hand on the grip just below the right. I readied myself and bent my knees, held on to my sword and balanced my weight so that I could move easily. She charges directly at me; I shift my weight to my right foot. At the last moment, she draws her sword up over her head and snaps it down toward me. I bring my own sword, rotating it around sideways so that the handle is up high, above and to the left of my face, ad the blade slopes down and to the right, providing a roof above me.

Her blow bounced off the roof like rain, and with that I sidestepped to let her go by and snapped the sword down toward her unprotected shoulder. She’s fast enough with her sword and snaps her sword towards mine to redirect its course. My right hand leaves the sword to anticipate her movement and as her sword hit mine, my left arm took the concussion and swung around my body. We both got back into our stance.

I smiled at her, “Nice move.”

She makes another attack. This one was pretty straightforward: a quick shuffling approach and then a snapping cut in the direction of my ribcage. I parried it. Now I know something about Luce, like most sword fighters. All she knows is kendo. Kendo is an attempt to take a highly disorganized, chaotic, violent, and brutal conflict and turn it into a cute game. The next time Luce came running toward me, cutting, and snapping her blade, I parried the attack, turned around and made a small cut above her knee. She collapses to the floor. I continued to swing my sword at my side in circular movements and stopped with my blade softly pressed against her neck. I slowly took my sword away to my side and offered her a hand to help her get up.

She took my hand, and I pulled her to her feet.

“Well played.” She shook my hand.

She walked off the matt and Ajax stepped on. He had no weapons on him, so I threw my sword to the side. He held both his hands up, so I knew this was going to be a fist fight.

He smiled at me and said, “Payback.”

I could feel Caius’s eyes on me the entire time.

He leaned closer to Ajax and whispered, “Take it easy.”

“Never.” He replied and I could see concern on Caius’s face.

He launched himself forward with his right arm scything around in a giant roundhouse strike. I sidestepped his body and ducked under his arm and bounced up again and spun around. He stopped short on stiff legs and whipped back toward me. He came at me again. Same move. His right arm swung. I sidestepped and ducked; we were back where we started. But he was breathing a little heavier than I was.

He came at me again and I ducked under his arm. This time I crashed an elbow into his side as I spun under his arm. He bounced straight off locked knees and came right back at me. I dodged away and felt the breeze as his fist passed an inch above my head. He smiled at me, “You’re good.”

I smiled back at him, “Maybe you’re just too slow.”

I could tell Ajax was a good fighter and it was probably a little unfair that I had angelic speed. I tried my best to go as slow as I could, but that was kind of fun.

He swarmed through the air at me. I dodged left and put an elbow in his face, and he connected with his left hand and knocked me sideways like I weighed nothing at all. I went down on one knee and got back up just in time to arch around his next lunge. His fist missed my gut by a quarter inch and its momentum pulled him past me and downward a little, which put the side of his head right in line for a left hook.

Then I danced back and took a breather and tried to see what damage I’d done. He was a little red but no damage. There was a little blood on his upper lip from the second elbow but there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. I’ve never fought a man before, but I realised I'd have to punch a little harder if I was going to win this fight. He looked at me and knew exactly what I was thinking. He smiled wider.

He got balanced on the balls of his feet and hunched his shoulders down low and held his fists out in front of him. He stamped his feet, left, right, left, right. It was like he was pawing the ground. He came straight at me, and I dodged left. But he was ready for that manoeuvre and landed a right hook in the centre of my chest. It felt like being hit by a four-hundred-pound weightlifter. My sternum seemed to crack, and I thought my heart would stop from the shock. I got off my feet and went down on my back.

“Ajax!” I heard Caius yell out.

I rolled over twice and got to my feet. My chest hurt badly and caused the mobility of my arms to drop a bit. I dodged whatever he threw at me for about a minute. He was talented but he wasn’t fast. I got an elbow in his face; it cracked his nose. His nose started bleeding and I thought the fight was over, but I caught a huge roundhouse punch on the left shoulder that nearly paralyzed my arm. I took a moment to get my balance back. I was small compared to him, but I had a lot of training. I landed a punch right where his jaw narrowed under his chin. Solid bone-to-bone contact. He lost his balance and fell flat on his ass.

Caius came running to me, “Are you okay? I have no idea what got into him.” He said, looking over his shoulder at Ajax.

“I’m fine, I promise. My chest hurts but I’ll be fine. If I can’t prove myself to your team, then I don’t belong here.”

“You’ve done that and more. Now let’s get you to the hospital wing. I’ll deal with Ajax later.”

I took Caius’s face in both my hands, “Hey, calm down, I’m already healing. There is no need to take me there. Rather go check on his broken nose.” He calmed for the moment as he looked into my eyes.

“I’m fine, I promise.” I let go of his face and he moved over to Ajax, who kept his head back to stop the bleeding.

He walked to a chair to sit down. Caius was pissed at him.

“What the hell happened? You looked like you were out to kill.”

“Sorry man, I got a little carried away.”

“Carried away? Ajax, just because she heals faster doesn’t mean we should beat her up!”

All of us came to stand in a circle around Ajax. He looked at me and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I smiled, “Yes you did, but please, I didn’t expect you to take it easy on me. Now take your hand away so I can heal your nose.”

Suddenly, I felt every eye on me. I chose to ignore it and focus on healing him. This I’ve done before. When Rebecca and I used to train, I healed her afterward. This was one of my most useful gifts. I stood behind him and put both my hands on his shoulders. My eyes lit up and I could hear him groan, he could feel the bone moving back in place. In a matter of seconds, Ajax was as good as new. He stood up and examined his body. I took Luce’s hand and the same thing happened and the scars on her knees disappeared.

“Thanks.” She said chirpy.

“That’s a neat trick,” Izzy commented, looking impressed.

“It comes in handy.” I smiled. “So, when do I get to fight you and Izzy?” I looked at Caius, putting the swords away.

He started laughing, “Oh no, that’s a question I don’t need to answer.”

Izzy seemed intrigued, “How about tomorrow?”

“Deal!”

A bell rang and they all grabbed their weapons. They ran out the door, but Caius came to me first.

“The bell means emergency; I can’t take you with me yet, so please stay here.”

“Yeah, no worries, I’ll be fine. Go!”