A/N: I know, I know. Next to nobody reads this, and those who do have probably realized that I do not update often or regularly. That being said, I would like to apologize for the long amount of time it took to put this out. Anyways, to those of you who actually read these things, please review. Tell me if you liked it, hated it, how your day was, what you would like me to do differently, if you think I should get rid of this or not, etc. Anyways, good day to you all, and for any Doctor Who fan who might have somehow stumble across this, Allons-y!
Shit. As I walk into the fighting arena, that is the only thing going through my mind, at least one thousand times by now. Reyna, my praetor, my literal superior in every conceivable aspect of importance right now, just challenged me to unarmored single combat. This is going to hurt. Fishing around in my pocket, I pull out my Stygian Iron coin and flip it. Luckily, it lands on the staff side and not the bow side. And just as suddenly as I caught the coin, it was replaced by a cold, six foot long piece of Stygian Iron. Well, at least I have a chance at not getting hit too much. Everything seems so much easier with Umbra in my hands.
During my little mental freak out, Reyna must have grabbed her sword, because I suddenly hear metal scraping on metal and leather, the unmistakable sound of a sword leaving its scabbard. I'm not sure if it's the sound of the sword being drawn or the piercing gaze I know that Reyna has affixed on the back of my head, but all the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention and I get the overwhelming urge to cower in fear. I am a child of Lord Pluto. I'm supposed to have this effect on people, and yet she manages to make me nearly wet myself just with her presence. "L-Lady Reyna? Are you sure we can't wear any armor?" Dammit, why can't I talk to her without tripping over my tongue?
"Quite sure. You aren't afraid, are you? What's the worst that could happen?" Reyna replies looking at me with very cold and very angry brown eyes. Is it possible for eyes to look hot and cold at the same time?
"Well, on my end, I could end up in the infirmary for a week with a few broken bones. Again. I could very realistically die. You... could - I don't know, maybe you'd get some slight bruising on your hands from thrashing me and trying to break my staff?"
I misspoke. Big-time. "The Legion is no place for those who fear death, Alexander Grey. Especially when you are the son of the Lord of the Underworld himself." Reyna readies herself to fight, getting into her stance and holding her gladius with both hands.
"I don't fear death, I just don't want to experi- Vulcan's sweat socks!" My response was cut short as Reyna charged me, wasting no time or pretense on this being mildly easy for me. Ducking under her charging slash, I am now in a very vulnerable back bend, my staff in both hands. As I continue watching her follow through on her slash, I see a lock of my hair falling. Holy Pluto, that would've made for an unwanted family reunion.
Reyna quickly recovers and turns around to stab down at me. I, being the suicidally quick thinker that I am, quickly curl up and roll back into her, keeping my arms out to catch her sword arm. Fuck, why did I do that? I left my weapon on the ground, and now she's basically got all kinds of free body shots on me. Luckily, while my mind was freaking out, my body was acting. I flipped Reyna over me and disarmed her in one move, backing away with her sword in hand. Again, Reyna quickly recovers and, noting the situation, grabs Umbra off the ground. Well, this should be interesting. I've never seen Reyna use a staff before. Maybe she won't be too good with one.
Just as I finish that thought, she starts going through some basic staff work, apparently getting a feel for its weight. Fuck, that's right. She's a daughter of Bellona, a war goddess. Her being bad with any weapon would be like me being afraid of the dark. Lord Mars, if my friendship with Lance and Leah means anything to you, please help me. Silence. Nothing happens. Not even a slight tingle to tell me that he even acknowledged my plea. Well. Fuck.
I, now sufficiently shaking in my boots both figuratively and literally, hold up Reyna's gladius in a defensive position. Reyna simply smirks and charges, holding Umbra like a spear, but something seems off about the situation. Is that a-
Before I have time to finish my thought, Reyna has pinned me to the ground with my own weapon protruding from my right shoulder. This would be a more surprising and impressive feat if there hadn't been a two foot long blade piercing flesh, bone, and dirt. At this point most people would be screaming in pain or going into shock. I simply looked at my shoulder, back up at Reyna (who was leaning over me, making sure I couldn't pull Umbra out of my shoulder, and smirking), and shouted, "What in the name of Jupiter did you do that for? And where the fuck did that blade come from? Gods, do you know how much this kind of thing hurts? I swear by all the Gods that you are a sadistic woman who uses me for your sick, sick kicks!"
I'm going to take this moment to pause because I guess I should explain a little: when I was born, the Fates and Juno tried to intervene. Something about me growing up to destroy the world. Pluto was able to stop them from ending my life, promising that what they saw could be prevented with training, discipline, and his blessing. His "blessing" is as good as it is bad, though. Here are the good things: shadow travel, shadow manipulation, geokinesis, summoning whatever plants are in Persephone's garden (mostly medicinal or poisonous plants), control over life forces, and just being really fucking hard to kill. I can and have taken a beating that would put most heavyweight boxing champions in a coma, and managed to walk away when they finally tired themselves out. Granted, I had about eighty broken bones, sections of skin and muscle torn from blunt trauma, and a concussion that made me wish I was hungover just so I would have some other head problem to tell my mother about (I had a concussion, don't try to understand the thought process), but I managed to walk away. Here are the downsides: I feel all the pain that would normally happen and then some, my demigod stink/monster attraction factor is about ten times the usual amount of a child of Pluto, if I take enough pain to kill someone, I get to watch the death of any random human on earth as it is happening, if I get too angry I enter a rage mode that is determined to kill anything within 100 yards of me, and severe energy drain from every above listed ability. To get a picture of how drained I'm talking, think about how tired an in shape, untrained American would be after running a marathon and you have how tired I would be after using two of my powers in quick succession. To imagine what would happen if I used all my powers, imagine that same American running a marathon while carrying/dragging a sumo behind him. Because of this, I don't really use my powers if I can help it, but I practice with them, try to make it so I can use them more, but I'm so far only good with shadow travel. It's annoying and backwards because that usually drains his children so much more than any other power we could have. But I digress, this has probably bored you to tears if you haven't been occupied with why I suck at fighting with all those useful abilities. Oh well, back to the sparring match, if you can call it that.
Reyna just looked down at me, a rather creepy smile on her face, and said, "Maybe I am, maybe I'm not." Tugging on Umbra, she continues, "Just shake it off, Grey, this match isn't over until you can make me bleed. On the long list of things you haven't managed to do in the three months I've been personally handling your combat training, that is at the very top." After about five (painful) tugs on Umbra, she finally has it out of my shoulder and drops it on my chest (to those who don't know, a six foot iron pole that is an inch-and-a-half in diameter isn't exactly light, i.e. it hurt), then turns around and picks up her sword which I was unaware I had dropped though am not surprised, all things considered. She lays her sword by my left hand, then picks up Umba off of my chest, walking a about ten yards away.
She turns back to me with a look that just screams "I know you just got stabbed through your arm. You gonna cry about it, or actually do something worthwhile?" Thank the gods I have spent time working both arms alone. Granted, I never thought I would need it in anything other than a life or death situation. Granted, outside of a mission, sparring with Reyna is probably as close as I'm going to get. After a few more moments of our silent stare down, I concede defeat, stand, and get ready for a major ass-kicking. Again. "Before this begins again, might I ask what you will do with all of your aggression should I ever wind up dead or MIA?"
"That-" Reyna begins charging me, staff behind her back in her left hand, "-is the least of your worries right now." Is she left handed? Or maybe ambidextrous? Fuck! In my little space-out moment, I had forgotten why she was charging me and barely had the time to bring up her sword to block her spinning strike. "Focus, Grey. Any slower and I would have broken three of your ribs. As it stands, be happy I'm only going half-speed." Gods, help me. I can't let myself get distracted by these little nuances. It doesn't matter-
WHACK! Suddenly, I'm on the ground, my head pounding. I just close my eyes and wait. It isn't a very long wait.
"Focus, Grey! Thinking is for anywhere but the battlefield when you aren't thinking about the battle!" Ah, yes. More wisdom from Reyna, dealt with the combination of pain and shouting. If this situation is anything like all of the other times this has happened, she is standing one foot to my right and leaning on her weapon. Hoping I'm right, I spin on my back, kicking towards where her knees should be. I make contact, and continue my spin, using the momentum to flip onto my hands and feet, somehow finding Reyna's sword in the process. My eyes open now, I find Reyna and do a quick somersault towards her. I right myself beside her, my left hand on her throat and her sword poised to stab at her head.
"Focus, Ramirez. You should have been up by now." In response, she glares, grabs my shirt and sword hand, flips me, and I suddenly find myself in a normal situation: Reyna straddling me, lightly panting, and pointing a sword at my chest. "You know, if you end up in this position any more often, and people might begin assuming that you like me more than just as your personal training dummy." Oddly, I never saw the next event coming. She stabs through my left shoulder, into the ground again. "Gods, dammit Reyna! One of these days you will get to know how this feels!" I shout through immense pain.
Reyna stands up, laughing lightly. "Suck it up, Grey. The only way I will ever know how this-" she points at her sword in my shoulder "-feels is if you grow the balls to not hold back in these sparring matches. I've seen you in action in our war games, and in live combat. You're better than this. I know that you at least have more skill with that staff of yours. I've had your private practices monitored, and they all report great things. Use them, or stop making idle threats." At this, she turns and walks away, and I am suddenly aware of the emptiness of the sparring pit, and my stomach.
"Reyna, aren't you going to pull this sword out of my arm and hurt me some more?" She only responds with silence. Well, fuck. This is probably going to hurt a lot. I raise my right arm, still in a lot of pain from her first stab, and with it, a large rock casting a shadow over me. I really hope I'm wrong about this hurting. I focus, attempting to shadow travel into Reyna's shadow, and then it happens. Despite the short distance, it still feels like forever in the chilling, whispering darkness. Soon, though, it ends, and I am standing behind Reyna, her sword still in my arm.
"Aaaaggghhhh! Fuck, that hurts!" And like the sadist she is, Reyna turns around, and swiftly pulls her sword out of my arm. "That doesn't help!" I shout, now gripping the gaping hole in my shoulder.
"Either you still wish to spar, or you wanted me to have my sword back, or at least have it out of your arm. I am more inclined to believe option one because you could have gone to the infirmary otherwise." She is still holding her sword, ready to strike or sheathe her sword depending on my answer.
"Well, I can still fight, and the first rule that you ever told me was that I fight until I can't whenever we spar. Besides, you said this match isn't over until I can make you bleed. You've only got my blood on you, like usual." My arms are now at my sides, ready for anything. And then I'm on the ground, wondering why I'm eating dirt when I don't feel any new pain. I try to get up, or at least move my head so I don't have to inhale dirt with every difficult breath, and I can't even do that.
"Come on, Grey, get up," Reyna says, clearly annoyed with me.
I try to respond, but my words come out rather garbled due to my make out session with the dirt.
Reyna then bends over and picks my head up by my hair, asking "What was that?"
I try to form a coherent response, but as any guy will tell you, it is admittedly difficult to form said responses when an admittedly pretty girl is a very short distance from your face and you have a really good view down their shirt at their, erm, ample assets. Why can't I ever just look her in the eyes? So much of my current problem stems from not meeting her gaze. After about twenty-five seconds of her waiting for me to respond, I finally manage to remember what I was saying. "I said, 'I'm trying, but I can't move anything.' And I still can't. I don't suppose you could get someone to find my friends or carry me to the infirmary?" I ask rather sheepishly, hoping that she won't drag me there herself, because Gods know that she would use it as a chance to berate me for my lack of endurance and getting her hopes up in a challenge I couldn't deliver.
"..." She just looks at me in silence for a few more seconds, then smiles one of her creepy, scary smiles. I really hope that means she's just going to have Aurum or Argentum drag me there and go eat.
No such luck.
She slings me, on my stomach, over her right shoulder in a fireman's carry, my arms dangling to about her waist, and my knees about even with her stomach. Why does she have me like this? She didn't even do it right, my waist is supposed to be on her shoulder, not my stomach.
She starts walking, a very uncharacteristically bouncy walk, causing my arms to sway with each step, my hands lightly brushing her... I feel the heat rushing to my face (among other places). Oh dear. I am so dead. "You know, Xander," she begins - Something is wrong here. She used my first name, and was that... playfulness in her voice - "if you keep that up, people might begin assuming you like me more than as just your Praetor." Yep, definitely playfulness. Gods, kill me now. This is going to be a long walk.
I really wonder if anyone will tell me how their day was. I feel like those are the only reviews I will get.
