"Jess! Stop!"
Jess stopped immediately and sheathed her sword, she smirked over her victory. Green helped Matt back up.
"Okay, training is over for now. I think you guys should go to the infirmary to have yourselves healed. Especially you Matt, you've got a bunch of marks on your sides," Green decided.
The five apprentices walked to the infirmary, all of them eyeing Jess cautiously.
"Are you okay, Matt?" Alex asked, a worried look in his big blue eyes.
"Yeah, I'm just fine," Matt said defensively. He was walking slowly behind David, slightly limping.
"Ya know, Jess served you up pretty good for a sparring match," Ryan said skeptically.
"I'm okay."
"Who would've thought that little girl could put up such a fight?"
"Definitely not me."
"Did you see it? She was zipping around, slicing you up, and she didn't even break a sweat!" David commented, impressed.
"Yeah, do you think she'll do that every time we fight? Maybe they'll give us sticks instead."
"Jess could probably kick your ass again with a stick."
"Like you could've done better."
Jess heard them talking about her behind her back. But she didn't care, she was rather pleased with their comments. Alex walked up next to her.
What does he want? Jess wondered warily.
"Jess… you didn't have to go that far to beat up Matt. He never even used a sword before," Alex said, standing up for the boy.
"I know, but shouldn't I always fight my best?"
"You could've gone easy on him…"
"No exceptions." Jess walked further on without Alex. She didn't want to listen to his nagging.
--
"Okay, next time, we're using STICKS. Just sticks," Green declared.
"Why? Nothing went wrong with the real swords," Blue said, obviously not noticing the harsh sparring.
"Jess almost killed Matt! Are you flipping stupid? Were you even watching?" Green started to question Blue angrily.
"Well... no."
"Vio, I think this appears to be your problem," Shadow pointed out.
"Yeah, because he got the apprentice that almost killed the other apprentice," Blue agreed.
"It's not only that..."
"Do you think Jess... wanted to kill him?" Vio asked, knowing what Shadow would say.
"Why would she want to?" Red asked nervously.
"I don't know..."
--
Princess Zelda was at the infirmary, helping the patients, when the apprentices came in.
"Oh my goddesses! What happened to you?" Zelda ran up to Matt to examine his wounds.
"She did it," the boys said, pointing to Jess. Jess just turned her head away.
"One of the nurses should take care of you. Is anyone else hurt?"
"Not really."
The boys followed Matt to the nurse.
"I'm going to my room," Jess said, turning to leave.
--
As Jess was walking, Zelda appeared before her.
"Why did you hurt that boy?"
"What? It was a sparring match."
"That looked a little harsh for a sparring match."
"Well you're always supposed to test your abilities to their full extent."
"Was that just a test to you?"
"Well... yeah. They needed to test our abilities, so I did."
"I think you misunderstood."
"No, I think I understood perfectly." Jess walked past Zelda to her room.
Zelda tried to examine the expression in her eyes, but couldn't. Jess's eyes were too dark to read, as if her eyes were meant to be unreadable. But Zelda was sure of one thing, that kid, was WEIRD.
--
Meanwhile, in the infirmary...
"Ow!"
"Hold still!"
The nurse was struggling to bandage Matt, who was obviously not fond of staying put long enough for her to bandage him.
"There, done. You can leave now, if you hurt yourself again, I'll get someone else to do it." The nurse left the room.
"Hey Matt! You know, for your first time sword fighting, you did pretty good!" Alex complimented.
"Thanks."
"You're a natural!"
Matt knew they were obviously trying to get his mind off of what happened with Jess. So, might as well let them think it's working.
"What are we doing tomorrow?"
"We're doing archery, and actually, since you're alright... we're starting again in two hours." Vio came into the room.
"Hey Vio," Alex greeted.
"Why are you here?"
"Well, I was told you guys were here, so I came to tell you. Wasn't Jess with you?"
"She went to her room cause everyone was pissed off at her," Ryan explained.
"Oh... because of--"
"Why else?"
"It'll be okay, we're using sticks next time."
"Why are we starting again so soon?" Alex asked.
"Since it's still daytime, we thought it was okay. Plus, we're kind of in a hurry to train you."
"Okay..."
"I'll go get Jess, you guys should be down at the training grounds again in a few minutes."
Vio had really been there to talk to Jess, to make sure she didn't hurt anyone again, but she wasn't there.
--
On the way there, Vio met up with Princess Zelda.
"Zelda, have you seen Jess?"
"Green told me about the training and I told her to go to the training grounds."
"Oh... but I needed to talk to her about..."
"I know, I talked to her about what she did to Matt."
Zelda told Vio what Jess had said.
"That seems... very creepy," Vio commented.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. How did you get stuck with the job to go talk to Jess?"
"Rock-paper-scissors..."
"Hey Vio!" Shadow was coming down the hall. "Training is starting again now, everyone's there."
"Okay." Vio and Shadow ran off to the training grounds.
"Damn... must everyone run off when we're talking about something important?" Zelda grumbled.
--
"You shoot the arrows into the targets ONLY. Did everyone get that?" Vio asked.
"Got it, let's do this already," Matt insisted.
"Go!"
Matt's arrow shot into the side of the target, David's shot past the target into a tree branch, Jess's arrow shot a little left of the bulls eye, and Ryan's arrow landed behind the target for unknown reasons. Alex didn't shoot his arrow.
"Oh... were we supposed to start?" Alex asked confused.
"No, of course not! That's why we just shot our arrows," David said sarcastically.
"But that makes no sense."
"I was being sarcastic you moron!"
"Shoot your arrow now, Alex," Vio instructed.
"Um... okay," Alex said nervously. Alex's arrow shot into the bulls eye, right on target!
"Wow! That was totally unexpected!" David exclaimed with disbelief.
"Yay! I got a bulls eye!" Alex cheered.
"Okay, archery and sword fighting is basically all you need to know. If there is anything else you can do, show it to us now," Green announced.
"What about martial arts?" Blue asked.
"None of us know martial arts," Red told him.
"Oh, I wanted to see someone kick through this wood." Blue held up one of those block breaking shelves. Two tiles of wood were in place.
"They said, if you can kick through at least two tiles, your kick is strong enough to break through a bone!" Blue explained enthusiastically.
"Wow... that would kick ass!" Ryan exclaimed.
"Can any of you do it?" Alex asked curiously.
"No, if we could, I would've broken Jago's face when I kicked him! Good times..." Green said remembering. That happened the day he was split into four (Shadow was there before the other Blue, Red, and Vio).
"It's getting dark, we should head back in now," Shadow suggested.
The apprentices followed their mentors out of the training grounds. When they turned around, Jess ran back to where Blue set up the block breaking shelf, and kicked through the wood. Jess did not know that Princess Zelda was watching from a high window.