Chapter 173
Finding a car that fit a babies car seat and ten adults, most of which being muscular, and thus wider than the average person, was a challenge. So instead, they chose two family rental cars. Over the course of five agonising days, Valkyrie and her family gritted their teeth and kept themselves from murdering Fletcher out of sheer frustration. They stayed on the road, barely parked, and took shifts sleeping just to get into Nevada as soon as possible.
Somehow, the very grace of God seemed to shine on the absolute idiot of a boy, as he pushed them just hard enough to have them grind their teeth and pull out their hair, but not enough to actually commit a crime. Only Nadia cracked once, smacking Fletcher hard enough to bruise him, when he tried to throw something at Erskine instead of hand it through the car and it fell on Laila causing her to cry. He had to beg and stay quiet for the rest of that night so that they wouldn't tell Tanith and Ghastly, who were having a break in the other car.
On the outskirts of the giant city of Las Vegas, her family found a motel to stay in. Nadia was sent in to buy their rooms, just two nights, and then they brought in their bags. They'd had to shed some of their gear and put it in a storage unit Fletcher had. Everyone was sharing a bag to make it easier. One day they'd go on a real family road trip but those five days had been hell. Poor Laila cried for hours each day and continued to wail for half an hour after they got into the motel before she passed out asleep. Tanith pushed her hair out of her face, continuing to pace and worry over the baby.
Their job over the next two nights was to deal firstly with a threat of a mortal-eating group of goblins, and then to take on some of the New Year's Eve terrorism and end of the world missions. These tasks had come from the Sanctuary themselves. Solomon had joined them on their road trip of hell and was going to help them through it too, which Valkyrie was glad about. She'd barely seen him since they got to America.
There was a light knock on the door and Valkyrie pulled herself off the bed to quietly open it.
"Laila's asleep," she whispered very quietly.
"Okay," Dexter whispered back, leaning in. "Me and Solomon were talking and thought we should go out to test your skills a bit. To check up."
Valkyrie nodded quickly. "I'll get ready now."
She closed the door gently and changed into some shorts and a sports top. It was only just coming up on twelve degrees, being as it was the middle of winter in the desert, but she knew she'd work up a sweat. Nadia had barely slept the entire car ride which honestly had been miserable for them both as Nadia wasn't quite as pleasant a person when she hadn't had enough sleep, so Valkyrie left quietly. She did love her, but five days of barely sleeping, being constantly annoyed and worrying over deadlines had stressed Nadia out too much to let her be a nice person. So a little break to work off some steam was just what Valkyrie needed while Nadia got herself back under control so they could go back to being happy together.
"Oh, man," Valkyrie groaned, ducking her head. She practically stomped up to Dexter and Solomon. "Does he really have to come?"
"He promised to be quiet the entire way," Dexter told her immediately.
"I won't be annoying, I swear!" Fletcher grinned.
Valkyrie glared at him. "You're already annoying me. I thought I escaped you."
"Nope," he smirked.
She turned to Dexter. "Are you really going to let this happen?"
He sighed. "Saracen said if I didn't get Fletcher away from him for a few hours he was going to kill Fletcher, break up with me, and move away forever. He seems pretty serious."
Valkyrie grimaced. "Nadia's angry too."
Solomon hummed. "It's been a long few days. Come on, we'll walk out of the city a bit."
Fletcher opened his mouth to complain but Valkyrie smacked the back of his head and he shut up. They weren't in a nice area. There were syringes and shards of glass on the floor, the butt of a large knife but no blade, and the very few cars they saw were beaten up and old. The air was nice on Valkyrie's skin though. She held her arms out and looked at the faded scars on her wrists. They were darker than the rest of her body but not pink, shiny or obvious like they used to be and she felt much more comfortable with them out – plus she had never noticed anyone else see them anyway. She no longer had any need to worry. Really, she didn't think anyone would ever notice unless she clearly pointed them out.
Solomon went straight to an abandoned building at the end of a long, worn down street and lead them through the chain-link fence, around the back of the building, through a thorny entanglement of vines attached to half-dead tropical trees and stopped when the brush cleared just enough for them all to spread out comfortably.
"I thought you said we were going to the desert," Valkyrie grouched.
"The desert is out there," Dexter told her as he wrapped his knuckles in tape. "This is the closest we can get without getting caught."
"But it's not the desert," she complained.
Solomon sighed. "Valkyrie, dear, while I would love to accommodate you, I simply do not have the patience today. Fletcher I would like you to move over there and keep an ear out for us. Dexter, I would like you to sit out for now. Are you ready?"
Valkyrie looked at Solomon from across the clearing and got in position. There wasn't much space between them, which meant she had to be even quicker than usual.
But Solomon chuckled. "Not quite yet. First, let's just see what you can do before we test your magical combat abilities. We don't want any accidents after all."
He told her exactly what he wanted and Valkyrie provided. She could bring her magic to her skin where it was white, danced and spat dangerously without hurting her but certainly gave a shock to anyone who was unlucky enough to experience it touching them - that being Fletcher. She could make it appear on a single place such as one hand or her thigh although that took effort to maintain. She could shoot it easily and melt the large rocks around them. She could hit moving objects with enough power to obliterate it or to just knock it back.
"Am I doing okay?" She panted, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead. They'd been at it for nearly an hour!
"I think so," Solomon frowned. "How about we spar?"
Dexter sprang up to face her. Valkyrie, so exhausted, just frowned for a moment and then gasped to herself. "But what if I make a mistake and kill him?"
"You won't do that," Solomon said certainly. "You know what happens if you do, so you won't."
"I know what I'm doing," Dexter said more comfortingly. When she turned to him, he gave her a wink.
"Alright," she said, holding her fists up.
Sparing with Dexter was always intense. He never went easy on her. The started out throwing magic and avoiding each other, using the trees and boulders as cover and a way to move. Valkyrie's mind focused only on the battle, only on subduing her opponent. She tried to trip him up, tried hitting him with low doses of her magic, tried to do anything she could with just her magic to push him back. And when he finally got close to her, she went to defend and was caught off guard when he punched her instead of using his magic.
She took the hit, taking only one step back before she launched herself into it and began grappling. They were such similar heights and almost even in strength, but Dexter was still the superior fighter by a long way. She waited for him to get a hand in her hair to force her onto her knees and pulled magic to that area and to her hands to zap him with enough power to make him gag and fall. She rolled away from him and hit him again while he was still down, then jumped on his back to hold him on the ground. After a moment of being dazed, Dexter shook her off in one swift move, got on top of her and held her down, giving her small but painful stings all over her body.
She cried out and Dexter stopped.
"That was good," Solomon said neutrally. "Valkyrie, you've gotten better. But you're nowhere near ready for what you need to do for the procedure you want."
Valkyrie closed her eyes to restrain herself from looking at Fletcher. "I have time. I'll keep training."
"I know. How could you have done that better?"
Valkyrie sat up and looked at the floor, focusing. "I need to get better at knowing how much magic is the right amount to use. Like, I had to stop and think for too long on if what I was trying to use was going to just trip Dex up, or if it might singe him, or knock him out. I was getting worried about killing him and that made me lose focus."
"What about at the end?"
"I took a lot of hits to get close enough to fight back. That could be dangerous with someone I don't know or if the person had a weapon. I also just failed to physically subdue him, which I should be able to do. That was stupid."
"It was."
"It's hard though. Because I don't want to test my magic out again and again to see how much power I'm really using! It's all well and good testing and guessing on objects but what if I need to use it to protect someone, or safely stop something happening? I'm great at high powered attacks but the lower velocity is really hit or miss."
"You've only had this magic a few months Cub," Dexter said soothingly, offering a hand and helping her up. "You spend five years learning everything you did before, so it makes sense that you don't have the same skill in this magic after just months of practice. You've come on more than most people could in a really short amount of time."
"But it's not good enough," she said simply. "I have to be better."
"You will be. But you can't get upset over it or you'll raise the bar too high to ever reach," he said, brushing her hair out of her face. "We'll keep practising. You're getting it already." She gave him a small smile and Solomon set them up again.
Just a short one. I have just decided Crystal's name and have it written in the future chapter as well, which was really fun to write about.
Remus Crux: Yes, you are Onion-butt, everyone better know by now. When I've submitted my Satanism work I'll let you and anyone else interested read it, but can't before due to plagiarism reasons, I'm sure you all understand. I love your support as always :)
