"Jennings, you're late!"
"What? No way! I thought I was early!"
That was the response Alex would have given to her combat teacher if she had the energy for sarcasm.
Right now, she didn't.
"Sorry," was the grumbled answer she gave instead as she shuffled into the Arena. After being woken up before dawn by Niyx, Alex was exhausted. Add that to the hour spearing lesson they had atop Mount Paedris and Alex was officially done.
Fortunately for Alex, Niyx noticed how drained Alex was (more than she usually was on a daily basis) and decided to let her off early to rest for a while before classes.
Alex promised to make use of the blessing of extra sleep (as if she would ever turn that down) and immediately flopped down on her bed and instantly fell asleep. Waking two hours later, Alex realised she was late for class - which unfortunately was double-combat. Great.
Rushing towards the arena, Alex realised she was running on no food (besides all the laendra she had consumed that morning) and little sleep. Again, great.
As she glanced around the arena, Alex noticed all the guys scattered around the room already practising their sword-play were staring at her. She shot a curious glance at Declan who was standing a only a few feet from where she was. He just responded with a smirk and a slight head nod to his good friend - Kaiden James.
Alex turned her head so she was facing her (not that she would ever admit it) crush. Kaiden was walking towards her with a smirk on his face.
Okay, what was so funny?!
Finally, Kaiden stopped directly in front of her. Reaching out a hand, Alex thought he was going to stroke her cheek and instantly blushed, but instead, he patted her hair.
Confused even further, Alex looked into his deep blue eyes, almost getting lost in the vastness of them. Kaiden's grin just widened as he leant down and whispered in her ear.
"You're bed hair is extremely cute."
Alex whipped her head as he started to walk away, but he was already busy giving some of the other guys what suspiciously looked like a look that said 'stay the heck away from her'.
Alex didn't think she could take anymore embarrassment.
"If you're done...chatting, chose a sword and get to practising," Karter called out.
Alex walked over to the collection of majestic of swords at the side of the arena. They were all beautiful but none of them compared to the wonder of A'enara. Choosing a sword at random, Alex glanced around the room again, seeing that Sebastian was without a partner.
A few minutes later, it was obvious to everyone in the arena that Alex was not with it. Her offence was sloppy and even her defence was lacking. She was covered in many slight cuts and grazes from the onward attacks that Alex was to slow to block, along with a more deeper cut on her forearm.
"Jennings!" Karter called for the second time that day. Alex and Sebastian halted the current fight they were in and turned their heads to their teacher who was walking towards them. Or more specifically, her.
"Yes?" Alex almost squeaked.
"First of all you were late to class. Now you are slacking," Karter all but yelled into her face. "My students are not slackers."
In one sudden movement, Karter drew the sword he kept in the scabbard strapped to his back and lunged towards her. Alex only had a milisecond to first figure out what was happening and then to react to it.
Relying solely on her Meyarian instincts, Alex ducked at the last minute, therefore dodging the sword's path towards her head. Quickly recovering, Alex returned the attack, after attack after attack.
She and Karter fought for a few minutes before she didn't have the strength to continue. She was holding her own - barely, solely because she was turning into her Meyarian senses, which she knew was cheating and dangerous because no one but a selective amount of people were supposed to know about her abilities.
Making sure that she didn't access her Meyarian speed and only the heightened senses, Alex defended herself from Karter's attacks.
"Come on, Jennings, you can do better!" Karter basically taunted her. In all honesty, she couldn't. She could barely keep up fighting Karter with the training she had during the summer - let alone think of using the things she had learnt with Niyx.
Alex didn't have the energy to continue. She was exhausted, she was worn out and she was done.
Just as she was about to yield, Karter's onslaught increased. His swung the sword harder and faster towards Alex's middle making her think fast to dodge it and prevent her upper body being cut in half.
That was it. There was no holding back now. Taking the slightest millisecond to centre herself, Alex opened herself to all her Meyarian abilities.
Opening her eyes, she barely saw the look of confusion and fear that ran across her teacher's face as he took in her raged expression before she lunged. Dropping her worldly sword to the ground and summoning A'enara in the space of a blink, Alex attacked Karter with new-found vigour.
Karter must have seen her grasp hold of a sword that came from mid-air - he had to - and he must have seen the blue-flames that covered the blade and most of her arm, but he didn't react to that. He reacted to the said blade that was currently en route to slicing his head off.
Ducking and therefore dodging the blade at the last minute, Karter returns her attack. The sound of clashing blades filled the room, and Alex could feel everyone's eyes on her and Karter - them having stopped to watch as soon as Karter bellowed across the arena.
It didn't take long for Alex to overpower Karter as she had Meyarian abilities and combat teacher or not, he was no match for Alex.
His breathing laboured, Karter laid on his back on the cold arena floor with his sword strewn 10 feet away after Alex had knocked it out of his hands and held A'enara to his neck, careful that the blue flames didn't touch his flesh.
"Do you yield?" Alex breathed. Gosh, it felt good to say that to him for once.
"Yes," Karter hissed out, a scornful look in his eye. He probably didn't think it felt good to say those words.
"Louder please," Alex commanded, this time just for the sake of self-satisfaction.
"Yes, I yield," Karter repeated, louder this time, his voice filling the whole arena and causing murmurs from those watching.
Oh no! There were people watching! There was no way they couldn't have noticed her Meyarian skills during that fight. To them, she would have looked like a blur.
Glancing around the room as Karter stood to his feet, Alex's worrisome gaze found Kaiden's.
A mixture of shock and pride was expressed in his meaningful look. Quickly walking towards him, Alex took a deep breath.
What had she done? If she couldn't control herself in the Arena, how would she ever face Aven? What would she do?
All her worrisome thoughts disapeered when Kaiden wrapped his arms around her.
"Shh, it's okay," he murmured into her hair, even though no words were coming out of her mouth. It was like he could read her thoughts. Maybe he could. Maybe that was what his mysterious gift was.
"What do I do, Kaiden?" Alex pulled back to search his deep, knowing eyes. "No one is supposed to know that, no one is supposed to know that I -."
Alex's voice broke as she realised they might not even know what happened. Her gaze dropped to Kaiden's shirt. The Meyarian race had been apart from humans for so long that hardly any humans had seen a Meyarian before, let alone know what abilities they have and how they fight.
The others in the arena saw something out of the ordinary, but they probably haven't figured out the whole story. Alex's secret might still be safe after all.
"That you're part Meyarian, I know."
Well, there goes that idea.
Kaiden's whispered words brought Alex's gaze to his once again. "It was that obvious?" Alex questioned him, still wrapped in his arms.
"To me, yes, but that's only because I knew you had Aven's blood in your veins beforehand."
"What?!" Alex was so confused.
"Let just say I have a good way of finding stuff out if I want to." Kaiden smiled knowingly.
"Wait, so you know everything about me?"
"I know most things, like that you're from Freya, and that your biggest fear is not being able to save everyone and that you're in love with me and that you're favourite food is -"
"Wait, hold up," Alex raised her eyebrows. She was shocked that he knew that she wasn't from that world but she was more concerned with what he said later. "What gave you that idea?"
"What, that you're worst fear is -?"
"No, that I'm," she laughed embarrassedly. "That I'm in love with you."
"Well, one, because you just admitted it," he held up a hand to stop her protest causing her to smile, "and two, because it's just so obvious."
Alex opened her mouth to combat his argument but she couldn't think of anything to say. Her silence caused Kaiden to grin knowingly which in turn caused her to stick her tongue out at him.
"Now, back to the problem at hand," Alex glanced around the room at the now groups of guys murmuring about what just happened and trying to make sense of it.
Pulling out of their embrace, Kaiden strode over to the group of guys and touched them each on the shoulder.
Alex looked at them curiously. No words were exchanged, but as soon as Kaiden touched their shoulders they all look confused for a minute. After he was done, Kaiden walked over to Karter and did the same to him before walking back to Alex.
"What did you just do?" Alex asked him, still looking at the group and now Karter who was also looking confused.
"I erased the memory from their mind," Kaiden responded simply as if he did it every day.
"Wait, that's your gift? You can erase memories?"
"You could say that," Kaiden said with a smile.
Ugh, cryptic as ever.
"I didn't technically erase their memory, more like modified it. Now all they will remember is having a normal combat class, then you walk in with your cute bed hair and - "
"Ugh, and you couldn't have changed that part?" Alex interrupted with a groan.
"Nah," Kaiden grinned. "It's such a good memory to keep."
Alex just rolled her eyes.
"Anyway, all they'll remember is having a normal class where you, being the bad-ass you are, beat up Karter as per usual."
"As per usual?" Alex scoffed. "As if."
"They won't remember you having super speed, and they'll forget about the last 8 minutes where we have basically been embracing in the arena,
Alex just groaned again.
"Thanks, Kaiden," Alex smiled.
"Anytime," he said with a wink and Alex knew that he wasn't joking, that she could count on him anytime, anyplace. And that was the most comforting thing she'd heard.
A/N: So yeah, that's my one shot finished! Please review and let me know what you think :)
Xx G