"It's nice to officially meet you sweetheart. I'm Nine" His face refuses to leave my mind, his cocky grin refusing to fade from my memory. I slam my fists into the punching bag, my knuckles already bruised but I'm too pissed to care right now. Now that we've all joined together, that rash idiot seems to have become everyone's new favorite Lorien. Now the others go to him for answers now. We're even staying in his goddamn penthouse in Chicago for Lorien's sake! I begin throwing furious kicks at the punching bag. I cannot stand him! The punching bag breaks, the sand pouring out of the hole that I created in the right side of it. The one redeeming quality about Nine is that he has a lot of punching bags in the training room. Breathing hard, I unhook the now unusable bag and drop it on top of the pile of sand. Which is coincidentally the 3rd bag I've broken today. But Nine seems to have an endless amount of money anyhow. And has no qualms about using it either. Which somehow pisses me off more. There's a black punching bag in the corner, shiny and new. It also happens to be the next unfortunate victim. I should get a picture of Nine and tape it to the punching bag, but the punching bag already has a horrible fate in store for it. I lift the 200 pound punching bag and hook it to the stand. For humans, it would have been a struggle. Luckily for me, I'm not human, but Lorien. I roll my shoulders feeling a satisfying crack in my shoulders, getting myself pumped for the assault. The door to the training room swings open, and I heard someone curse softly. I whirl around. It's Nine. He grins and shakes his head. "Damn girl" he laughs "Is this what you've been doing all day?". I glare at him. Is he mocking me again? He doesn't train half as much as I do, but some how John thinks okay to put him in charge of Ella's and Marina's training? I mean I could see how Eight could be uncomfortable with training under me, because he grew up in India, but really? And John expects it to be fine, even after all that I've done to train him and Sam that he can just pass over me to Nine. I roll my eyes at him. "Yes. Because I actually want to be prepared when the Mog's come for us" I say pointedly, not trying to disguise the venom in my voice. He raises his eyebrows. "And mutilating the poor defenseless punching bags is going to save you?" He asks, smirking and crossing his arms over his chest. "Then what do you suggest, Mr. I-Know-Everything?" I shoot back at him. He grins, and a dangerous gleam appears in his eyes. "How about a little one-on-one?" He pauses. "Well, unless you're afraid of hitting targets that can hit back?" He's toying with me, I know it, but I can't help but feel infuriated. I did not watch Katerina die, suffer through being locked up for over a year by Mogodarians, and fight Setrakus Ra one-on-one to be pushed around by an upstart kid who thinks he can kick my ass just because he can defy gravity. "Come at me" I yell raising my fists. Nine then looks me up and down. "You don't know how long I've wanted you to say that, sweetheart". Then he runs at me faster than I've ever seen anyone run before. I turn invisible and dodge him, barely getting out of the way in time. He continues running till he hits the other side of the room and continues running up the wall, then the roof. I exhale, and he flies towards me. How did he see me? I'm freaking invisible! And then he leaps at me from the ceiling,and I duck as his kick flies straight over my head. Why isn't my invisibility working? Then it hits me. He has supersonic hearing, which is helping him find me, but he can't hit me. Time for my offensive. He lands, and turns around just in time for my fist to hit him in the stomach. Which is satisfyingly sweet. He gasps, and my fist slams him again, against his rock hard stomach. Which strangely, hurts worse than hitting the punching bag. Somehow he gets a roundhouse kick into my ribs, and a pain explodes in my side. I almost double over from the pain, but I can't give him the satisfaction. I sock him right in the jaw, and my knuckles bruise up immediately as my fist connects. His fist finds me and gets me in the stomach, and the pain tells me there's going to be a nice bruise there in the morning. He leaps up, and his feet find the ceiling and he backs off into his defensive. "C'mon Babe, lets go without the Legacies. Don't want to damage that pretty face of yours" His bottom lip is bleeding, and his cheek is beginning to bruise up. Which is nice because i can feel my stomach and ribs bruising up rather painfully. "You haven't got my face yet Nine" I shout at him. "You're just scared I can beat you" I taunt. "Well Babe, you sure can't beat me without it" he shoots right back. He grins in my general direction, and it strikes me that he looks really attractive with that bruised lip. Almost... sexy? What in Lorien is wrong with me? Nine is an asshole. And while he's in everyone else's good books, there's no way in hell hes getting in mine. "If I don't use my Legacies, you can't use yours" I call out to him. He nods, and drops to the floor feet first. He turns towards me and I suddenly wonder if he can hear my heartbeat that seems to be pounding in my ears. I unshield myself, and he grins. "Glad to see you, Sweetheart" I glare back at him in response. We begin circling each other, like boxers in the ring. We meet each others gaze. His blue eyes meet mine, and I can't help but feel a little unnerved. I instead focus on his broad shoulders, which will give me an indication when he decides to attack. His shoulders twitch, and before i can process his attacks my body moves on its own, dodging and attacking. The room around us disappears as we become a flurry of energy attacking and defending against each others attack almost in sync. We're evenly matched. If one of us lands a hit, seconds later the other gives a bruising right back. I'm high on adrenaline, and I think he feels in too. We're both sweating when we pull apart, panting. "You're pretty good, Six" He gasps, between intakes of breath. I'm nearly doubled over trying to catch my breath back. "You too" I say breathing heavily. "You still want to go?" I ask, when my breathing and my heartbeat have steadied. He gives me a genuine smile. "I could do this all day" He replies. "You're going to regret saying that" I smile back. He raises his eyebrows. "I don't think I will" He says still grinning. In seconds we become a flurry of punches and blocks. We're both breathing hard, and we're blocking more and more of each others he trips me and we fall, our bodies tangled together. Thankfully, the floor is padded with mats. He shielded the back of my head from the impact with his arms, and we face each other, our faces mere inches apart. Our bodies are pressed together, and I can't help but feel that we fit into each other, like puzzle pieces. Dear Lorien. I can feel my face burning up, and Nines blushing too. Then he does he leans in, and kisses me.