Beat down

Aerrow tucked his head in as he rolled to the side to avoid an incoming strike. He struck out with his legs, hoping to tackle his opponent to the ground. They jumped high into the air to dodge and brought down a fist which Aerrow blocked. He grabbed the retreating arm and pulled them down to the ground where they scuffled. Aerrow trapped the wrist and reached for a headlock, but his opponent twisted away and returned with a vice like grip on his own arm. They gave a warning tug and Aerrow felt his shoulder pull tight against the strain. He grimaced and cautiously reached even further, trying to secure his own position. A small noise of disgust was the only warning he had before his shoulder was pulled from the socket and he let go with a gasp of pain.

"Eva!"

His shoulder was pushed back in as quickly as it had been dislocated and Aerrow felt himself released to land on his face on the floor, gasping for breath.

"Unbecoming conduct of a trainee Sky Knight!" Sensei admonished Aerrow's opponent Eva sternly. Striding forwards and pushing her out of the ring, he reached down to pull Aerrow to his knees and examine his shoulder. Aerrow struggled to focus on the master through the pain though it was now fading to a dull ache. "You should have held your position."

"I did!" Her indignant cries belayed the lies she told. "He was the one who moved, it wasn't my fault!"

"Enough." Sensei cut her off shortly. Apparently satisfied with his examination, he pulled Aerrow to his feet by his good shoulder. Aerrow grit his teeth to stop from crying out. "To the infirmary."

Aerrow started to protest but cut off when Sensei gave him a gentle push towards the door. Hanging his head and his ears burning with shame, he left the training room.


The healer eased his pain with a small pink crystal and sat Aerrow in a chair to wait until its effects had reached full formation. He sat quietly, lamenting his embarrassment and trying to find anger at Eva for her less-than-Knightly behaviour. All he could find was shame and anger at himself.

He was surprised when Sensei walked in and took a chair next to him. Neither spoke for a few minutes, Aerrow fidgeting nervously and expecting a berating. He did not expect what Sensei eventually did say.

"You waste your potential."

He looked up from his clasped hands to see the master watching him carefully.

"You are so much better than this. You proved that when you passed the entry examination. This is not your best, not your full potential. Something is holding you back. I cannot yet figure out what it is, but it makes you reluctant to hit an opponent." Aerrow looked back down to his hands. "Ah, yes. Something you are ashamed of. Something you wish to avoid." Aerrow couldn't find his voice. "If you wish to progress here, you must live up to your potential. You cannot hide from it forever, unless you plan to leave us and return to your former life."

"No!" Aerrow choked out. "No please, I…I can do better."

"I know. That is why I am here." Sensei responded calmly. "You will come see me every other day, beginning tonight, for private tuition." Aerrow looked at him again, surprised.

He was even more surprised when he gave a small smile.

"I am not giving up on you yet, Aerrow."


"Private lessons with Sensei? They must be worried about you then."

Kipp and Aerrow were in the hanger bay, locking their rides away after patrol. Aerrow was due to go for his first lesson, and was more than a little anxious at what it would entail. Kipp also seemed to think it was a big deal.

"You know the first quartier tests are just a couple weeks away right? If you fail even one part, you're out." The Blizzarian's eyes were wide. "They need to see you're still at the top of your game. And your game, I'm afraid, is clearly lacking."

"I know, and this isn't helping Kipp!" Aerrow sighed and nervously ran a hand through his hair. "Look I'd better get going or I'll be late."

"Good luck, you'll need it."

Aerrow shook his head at his friend's 'support' and left the hanger. He passed several barracks, and then stopped as he heard rustling in the bush in front of him. Suspicious, he crept closer until he saw a small tuft of tell-tale blue fur.

His breath caught as he saw the little creature, the same one that had been on his skimmer and that he was sure had been killed by Cole and his gang. The animal's large ears caught the small sound and he swivelled his head to stare at Aerrow.

"Hi there." Aerrow smiled and spoke softly, pleased to see the animal alive and well. He slowly bent to one knee, the animal watching his every move. "Am I pleased to see you, little guy."

The creature made no move to run away, but it regarded him suspiciously and stayed frozen on the spot.

"You're getting everyone quite worked up out here, stealing food and all that." The creature's nose twitched as it sniffed him from afar. "Are you hungry?" A small rumbling from the creature confirmed Aerrow's suspicions and it shrunk back from him. "Hey, it's okay. I won't hurt you."

Aerrow slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of dry biscuits. Calorie rich and dry as a bone, every cadet carried them to fill the long hours of patrol. At the crinkling sound of the packet the animal's ears pricked forwards and his sniffing increased. Aerrow pulled out a biscuit and broke it in half, holding it out in his hand.

"There you go. Not the best, but it's good for you, see?" He took a bite of the biscuit and felt his mouth immediately dry up. He smiled ruefully.

The creature looked between Aerrow and the biscuit and eventually made up its mind. It crept forwards, belly to the floor, until it could snatch the treat from his hand and retreat back towards the bush. Within seconds the biscuit was gone, the creature licking crumbs from its fingers and looking to Aerrow for more.

Aerrow laughed quietly and handed it a whole biscuit this time. "You sure are hungry. Can't you catch your own food yet? Or does your mother still…" Aerrow trailed off at this thought, taking in the tiny size of this creature and comparing it to the dead form of the creature the other cadets had killed. He frowned sadly.

"Are you all alone little guy?" The animal looked up at the change of his tone and cocked its head to one side. It let out a little chirp, sounding more like a bird than any other animal it resembled, and Aerrow thought it looked sad.

"Well, well." Another voice made Aerrow's stomach drop. "Not so stupid as you look then."

Aerrow straightened up to see Cole approaching, accompanied as always by Ryder and Batesson. He was smirking, and watching the creature with cold eyes. "Luring it out with food, very sneaky."

"It's just a pup." Aerrow defended. "You can't kill it."

"Correction: it's a pest's pup. Which still makes it vermin and fair game."

"We got off two hours of patrol as a reward for getting the other one." Ryder put in with a smug grin.

"Well you can't have him." Aerrow said forcefully, taking a defensive stance in front of the animal. Run, he thought at it, run away while you can! The trio laughed at him.

"You haven't won a single fight in the ring!" Batesson laughed. "And now you want to take on three of us together?"

"This is ridiculous." Cole lunged forwards suddenly to grab the creature, but was abruptly stopped by Aerrow's foot to his face. He recovered quickly and stepped into a defensive position of his own, a scowl on his face.

A rustling in the bush let Aerrow know the animal had bolted, and he smiled slightly to himself. The smile didn't last long when he saw the look on Cole's face.

"That was more stupid than you know."

It couldn't even be called a fight, Aerrow thought as his still sore shoulder was pulled behind him and a fist was levelled into his stomach. The beat down was short, effective, and brutal. The three cadets were working as a very efficient squadron, and Aerrow was the Cyclonian scum they were breaking.

He had lasted about seven moves, until Cole took him out with a roundhouse that left him seeing stars. Then he was on his knees and struggling for each breath.

It was only when another cadet, Kato, rounded the corner and shouted out in alarm at the scene did they give him a second to find his feet. Kato angrily asked what was going on and said he would report them to Major Tom as the three withdrew, but Aerrow waved him down.

"Thanks Kato, its fine." The boy glared at the three but reluctantly retreated, saying he had been sent by Sensei to find Aerrow. "I'm going, thanks." Aerrow pulled his uniform straighter and wiped blood from a broken lip. The cadets had been smart with their attack, hitting mostly body parts covered with clothing, but his busted lip would be harder to cover up.

Aerrow started on his way to the training room, but Cole called out behind him before he could get away.

"Don't think that vermin is safe now! We'll get that little rat, and we'll kill it, you hear? It's dead."

They continue to laugh and yell at him as he left the scene, already late for his first lesson. But Aerrow couldn't concentrate. He grit his teeth at the words and his blood boiled at the brutality.

He reached the barracks and tried to calm down by taking several meditative breaths. He couldn't get the image of the trio killing the pup's mother out of his head, and he dreaded what would happen if they caught the pup. He gave up and tried to straighten his uniform again, before knocking and entering the room.

The lighting was dim inside the training hall except for a spotlight on the fighting ring. Sensei stood waiting in the centre, his arms crossed and his eyes sharp as Aerrow walked as normally as he could up to the master.

He took in Aerrow's unkempt appearance and bloody lip and frowned. "You're late."

"I apologise, Sir." Aerrow tried to inject some respect into his voice, and keep it from shaking with stress and anger. "I was…waylaid."

"So it seems." He gave Aerrow a sharp look. "The Academy has strict rules of conduct. Is there anything you wish to report, cadet?"

Aerrow thought of the tiny pup and the danger it was already in. He thought of how much more difficult Cole could make his life, and how much more viciously they would go after the creature out of spite for him.

"No, Sir." Aerrow stood to attention and held his position under the master's scrutiny, until he nodded briefly and let the matter rest.

"You will be less of a target if you can hold your own against opponents. Let us begin."

Aerrow tried his hardest to focus on his technique, but his mind kept being pulled back to the creature. He couldn't concentrate on the lesson, which Sensei quickly noticed and did not hide disapproval at Aerrow's lack of discipline. Within ten minutes Aerrow's nerves were stretched to their limit.

"Enough. Fight me."

Unprepared for the sudden attack, Aerrow was pushed swiftly back to the edge of the ring. Sensei did not pull his punches, and Aerrow felt new bruises blossoming. He would be black and blue after tonight's ordeals.

"Fight me." Sensei attacked again, forcing Aerrow to defend himself and react automatically. They stumbled out of the ring and into the surrounding areas, but Sensei did not stop pressing forwards. Aerrow tried to think, to plan his moves, but each was countered effortlessly and never found its mark. The morning's appalling fight, his sore shoulder, the cadets killing the creature, his second beat down, the tiny little pup that was alone and scared – Aerrow just wanted to curl up in a ball and yell at the world.

"Fight me." Aerrow backed away and growled low in his throat, the stress and worry of the evening turning into anger until he began launching attacks of his own, throwing kicks and punches in an uncontrolled mess.

"Better, but you're still not trying. Fight me!" Sensei slapped Aerrow hard across the cheek, and then it was all too much. He lost the tenuous control he held over his temper. His face slipped into a cold mask and he began a furious attack, flying through the air in flips and tricks, ducking and weaving through the master's own attacks and landing various hits. As his anger crested to a peak and he imagined Cole's cruel smile, he let out a howl and struck with all his strength at Sensei's elbow.

He felt the arm shift under his hand. Heard the crack of breaking bones. Saw the bright red blood flow from the open wound.

Aerrow staggered back in horror, only to change to utter confusion as Sensei shook his arm out and straightened, nodding his head sagely.

"Ah, I see."

The sudden stop threw Aerrow. He looked at Sensei and saw there was no broken bone, no gaping wound in his arm. He blinked and looked down at his own hands. There was no blood.

"You have hurt someone before. And the memory still haunts you."

He shook his head to clear the battle rage and looked back up at Sensei wordlessly. His body was still coiled like a spring, ready for action, but his mind was blank except for the gruesome images.

"Tell me about it."

Aerrow's mouth opened and closed, then he felt the anger creep back in again from the edges.

"What the hell was that?!" He demanded furiously. "You attacked me! And then you want to talk? No way, you're mental!"

Aerrow had never spoken back to authority like this. In the quiet part of his mind he knew the severe punishment for such misconduct, but the much louder part of him called to attack again, to continue their fight to the end.

"I told you I did not yet know what is holding you back. But now I have some idea." The Sensei stood nonchalantly, arms crossed and face calm. It only made Aerrow want to attack even more. "You have hurt someone before, someone you care for, and this makes you fearful."

"No."

"But you cannot live your life in fear."

"I'm not!"

"You fear your rage and your strength, and I can only help you if you tell me everything."

Aerrow stared at Sensei. Sensei stared back at Aerrow. "Tell me."

And suddenly, just like that, the floodgates he had kept locked for so long opened up, and Aerrow found himself talking about that day all those months ago which had changed everything.

"We were being robbed." Aerrow swallowed the lump in his throat. "We didn't have anything worth robbing, but they still came to us. It was the middle of the night, but I heard them in the next room. Our flat was so small you could hear everything between the two rooms. I went in and fought them, but another one got into our room and woke Rosella up. That's my...well...she was my guardian. She screamed, so I ran in to help her. I was…I was so angry.

"They were amateurs, but they were big guys and I was only a skinny little kid. It shouldn't have been so easy, but I beat them all. When the guy was down, I didn't stop, I just kept hitting him." Disgust at himself was clear in Aerrow's voice. "I didn't want him to get up again. I didn't want them to come near us ever again! We had it hard enough without them trying to take the little we did have.

"I didn't notice it was her when she grabbed me. Didn't hear her yelling at me to stop. I just saw her reaching for me and reacted. I hit her elbow and…there was a crack, and then it was broken and she was screaming. There was so much blood, I tried to stop it but…"

Aerrow trailed off and gulped down air like a drowning man. He blinked back tears at the memory and clenched his fists, desperation in his voice.

"It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her. I was trying to protect her. She's all I have…had…I'd never want to hurt her."

"I believe you." Aerrow looked up frantically at Sensei's calm words. He was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, watching Aerrow carefully. "You were protecting your family and your home. A man has every right to do this."

"But…but I broke her arm." Aerrow said remorsefully. "I snapped it in half with barely a blow. We used half of our savings to pay the healer's bill. It took weeks to heal!"

"And who tended to her during those weeks?" The Sensei's question was not what Aerrow expected.

"I did, of course. I wouldn't leave her to–"

"And who earned the money to replace that which you spent?"

"…I did. She couldn't work with a broken–"

"And has she forgiven you?"

Aerrow paused. Rosella had told him many times that it was an accident, and that she forgave him. But he couldn't just accept that. She had forbidden him to train, and he had used his training to break her arm. She had forbidden him to even think about becoming a Sky Knight, and he had applied without her knowledge. Then they had argued, and he left for the Academy. He left everything with her, taking only the clothes on his back and a few personal possessions that were of no real value.

But she still said that she forgave him for breaking her arm.

"I…I think so." Aerrow said unsurely.

"Then it sounds to me that you have repaid the debt owed for the original mistake. And you must learn to accept that it was just that: a mistake. You were younger, rougher around the edges, and unknowing of your own strength. Here we can find your limits and teach you how to control them, to prevent any other similar accidents. One mistake needn't hold you back your whole life."

Aerrow breathed deeply and let Sensei's words sink in. It sounded…logical. He still felt bad about it and doubted he would ever truly forgive himself, but it was in the past. He had made amends as best he could for that mistake. And he did already know better. He knew he was stronger than back then, but he knew how to handle his strength better now. The Academy taught the restraint of force as much as it taught its use.

"Do you agree? Will you train now without holding back from your potential? Will you trust your teacher to know your limits?" Sensei asked, still watching him carefully.

"Yes, Sir." Aerrow bowed. As he straightened he felt a heavy weight lift from his shoulders, and another part of his life seemed to fall into place.


It took another few private lessons before Aerrow fully embraced Sensei's advice. It was draining, and brought back difficult memories, but the pay-off was worth it. Within the week he won his first fight in the ring. Sensei nodded calmly, but the rest of the cadets stared with open mouths as Aerrow threw Jael to the floor. Jael, to her credit, smiled and clapped Aerrow on the back for his victory, promising to get him next time.