Peter had expected Master Shin to move far back, requiring him to give chase, but the old man never once stepped outside his reach. It was as if he was a specter, Peter’s eyes seeing the blow land, but his body never making contact. This went on for a little less than a minute, Peter giving everything he had, knowing he was getting better and better. The moment his body could no longer keep up with his mind, the fatigue and pain he had pushed out rapidly onset, and in one decisive blow he was face down on the floor, saliva seeping from his mouth as he could not even close it.
Master Shin turned from the man, retreating back to his seat upon his cushion. Anaar sulked up to the old man, not tearing his eyes from the still prone Peter until flopping unceremoniously onto a cushion next to him. The old man gave him a look, but dismissed his lack of decorum.
“Aren’t you going to give him some final words of wisdom or something?”
“That child did not need a sermon, he needed a harsh lesson. I gave him the parameters of my offer, he failed. There is nothing left for me to give him.”
“I feel like the trash man… Now I have to carry him to the hospital.”
“I am sure you will be able to take care of him.”
“Now I’m getting a test?! I told him we shouldn’t have come. He insisted.”
“There are those who words can no longer reach. You must become willing to accept when that time comes.”
Trudging over to Peter, Anaar scoops him up with a groan as spittle runs down his front, through some of the tears in his shirt. Realizing that he would rather not cart him to the hospital in such a state, he checks him over, finding he was not terribly injured, but he would be sore for days. If anything, Anaar was sure his spirit took the brunt of the damage. With a subtle touch he placed a regenerative orb inside his body, something that was not too strong, that way he would think he recovered on his own. By the time they had made it out of the dojos, Peter was lucid again, and Anaar shifted him to his shoulders since he had enough strength to hold on of his own accord.
“Did I fail?”
“Does your face hurt?”
“Immeasurably.”
“There is your answer.”
“Did he really mean what he said? I can never become his student now?”
“Master Shin’s word efficiency is higher than anyone I know. If he took the time to say it, he meant it.”
“Bollocks… Why did it feel like he was teasing me?”
“Because he was.”
“But I felt like I was fighting better than I ever had in my life. What could I have done better?”
“Firstly, you could not be a little shit and challenge someone on par with the Headmistress.” Even though he could not see his expression, he could tell by the slight gasp and the increased tension of Peter’s legs around his neck he understood.
“Is he really that strong?!”
“No Peter, I was simply saying that for dramatic effect.”
“My head is swimming, was that sarcasm?”
“Yes…”
“Why would you let me challenge someone like that?!”
“I very clearly remember advising you against it.”
“Mayhap you lead with the part where he is as strong as the Headmistress?”
Master Shin wasn’t kidding… “Mayhap you start with some conditioning. Seriously, you gave out in like a minute. Even if you can move that way, it means nothing if you can’t sustain it. Why was it so important to have him, or anyone as a martial arts teacher all of a sudden?”
“The Mid-Year Melee is right around the corner. Codi said it could be right grisly.”
“She was telling the truth. I don’t think a crash course in martial arts is suddenly going to prepare you for it though.”
“What else am I supposed to do to win?! It just occurred to me, is my head that ruptured, or are you number 2 in both your class and the school?”
“Your head may be ruptured, but you do at least have those facts correct.”
“If Phavian is number 1 in the school, how are you not number 1 in your class?”
“It’s complicated, but just know there are more important things than winning.”
As they crested the hill, Tempest Tower looming in the distance, Peter becomes aware of where they are going. Though not exactly struggling, he does begin to squirm once he realizes.
“Where are we going?! I have just been brutally assaulted! We should be going to the hospital!”
“And whose fault is that? I’m not carrying your ass all the way to the hospital. You are fine. Sleep it off, you will be good as new in the morning. If Master Shin truly wanted to hurt you, he could have before you even recognized it.”
“On what authority are you licensed to make medical decisions?! I could be concussed! I could have internal bleeding! I-”
“Could get dropped from six feet in the air. Spoiler alert, you are on a hill, you will be rolling for a while. I have the highest grades in the medical curriculum, trust me, you are fine.”
“What exactly does a Demolitionist do in Medic classes?”
“Where do you think the injuries to treat come from during the practicums?”
“I cannot tell if you are joking…”
“Don’t worry about it then.”
“Could you do me a spare and let Wu know I will not be joining them for dinner tonight?”
“You are literally getting a free ride to your room, yet you want me to send your friend a message. Why can’t you tell him yourself?”
“I couldn’t! I would die of embarrassment! What would I tell him?!”
“That you wrote a check your ass couldn’t cash.”
“What does that even mean?!”
“Not exactly sure, but Phavian says it and it seemed appropriate.”
“Please!”
“Nope. Look at it this way, it could be worse, you could have to tell Shonte. I think she actually would get the reference…”
Begrudgingly Peter fashions a message to Wu asking him to let everyone know he is sick and will not be joining them for dinner. Once they reach the doors to Tempest Tower, Anaar deposits Peter, letting him know he was on his own from there. Checking his stability, realizes that he indeed did not feel as bad as he thought, though he was still very sore. Thanking Anaar, he takes his leave, Anaar waiting until he made it to the elevator and had gone up. As he was on his way back to his room a message came in to his Vizer. Checking it, he sees it is from Wu.
“Pete totally got his ass kicked, didn’t he?”
Grinning at the message, Anaar mentally sends one back of his own.
“I can neither confirm nor deny the validity of that statement.”
21
“Have I told you how much I love your boyfriend?”
Phavian looked at Codi with surprise as they rode the shuttle toward her room. It did not escape Codi’s notice that others on the shuttle had overheard her comment and seemed quite interested themselves. Holding her hand out with a sphere of crackling electricity, she glared angrily at the snoopers.
“What the fuck are you looking at?! That’s right, we have big gangbangs all the time! Phave gets totally drilled-”
“Please! Ignore her! She is off her meds! Nothing to see here. Please forget what you heard.” Jabbing her in the side with his finger, he growls in a hushed tone, “Will you shut the fuck up? You act like people don’t know who we are! Just what we need when things are going so well between us, some bullshit scandal caused by one of your dumbass jokes.”
“I thought it was funny…”
“I’m sure you did… Why do I even put up with you?”
“Because your life is hollow and incomplete without me. Now stop fucking interrupting and let me tell you what that sweet piece of ass has done for me.”
“What could possibly have you this excited?”
“He somehow talked Petey into being my personal guinea pig! It is great! He keeps mentioning something about his head exploding though…”
> “What are you doing to that kid?! He is like half the size of people you normally experiment on! What good will that do you?!”
“You gotta start somewhere… Ever since he got his ass brutally ravaged by Master Shin, he has been obsessed with getting stronger before his Melee. Typical Freshie shit, trying to find a shortcut.”
“When did this happen? Why don’t I know about this?”
“Fuck, you two are like the worst married couple ever. It’s like you have zero communication. This happened weeks ago.”
“Anaar has this thing about information, trying to get anything from him that does not solely deal with him gets locked away, never to be mentioned.”
“And you are okay with that? There needs to be some discipline in your relationship!”
“Right… Like you and Pryshka.”
“Damn right! The spankings she gets…”
“Alright, enough of that. What exactly have you been doing?”
“Well Anaar has given him some crazy idea that I can use my powers to boost his, not like I have a fucking clue what that nerd is talking about. I barely understand what Petey does.”
Peering at her with judgmental eyes, “If you don’t have any way of helping him, what are you doing?”
“I’ve got this new trick I have been working on where I hijack someone’s body.”
“The fuck do you mean by hijack?!”
“Steal, control, take possession of by force… Moron.”
“No shit, but what do you gain from doing that?”
“Remember how that cunt Ana could basically make people her slaves? It is sorta like that, but actually requires work and talent.”
“That is so not cool… After the way you felt about Ana…”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, that shit is hard as fuck. Even making fingers move on command is like brain surgery. Come to think of it, I believe it technically is brain surgery…”
“And this kid is just cool with you practicing your puppetry on him?”
“Sure! As long as I expand his bandwidth. Whatever the fuck that means.”
The two exit the shuttle at Tempest Tower, making their way up the elevator to Codi’s room. Phavian collapses onto her sofa, his weight and the haphazard manner in which he dropped onto it causing it to shift along the floor ever so slightly. Almost as if there were alarms that alerted her to any disturbance of the pristine nature of her living space, Codi rushes in, kicking him hard in the side.
“Fix that shit you fucking slob! I’ll be damned if you turn my room into that fucking hovel you call yours!”
“My room is clean!”
“Only because Anaar beats you and makes you clean it up!”
“He does not beat me! You make this seem like some sappy drama!”
“Yeah, because it is much worse than that, and it is starring his foot and your ass.”
“Whatever…”
An arc of electricity surges through, him, causing some of his hair to stand on end.
“Fix. My. Fucking. Couch!”
Codi disappears into her room as Phavian drags himself from his seat, bringing it back to its original position. Not wanting to deal with any more of her normal hyperaggression, he carefully sits back down, making sure he did not undo his work. In her bedroom Codi notices her phone blinking. Picking it up she sees there is a missed call from Yoshi and a voicemail. After listening to the message, she returns his call, worried by the tone of his voice.
“Yoshi, what’s going on? What’s so urgent? Is Hina okay?”
Yoshifumi’s voice is both hushed and rushed, as if he were doing his best to conceal his activities. There is a pause for a brief moment and then he begins speaking again.
“Hina is fine. It is you I am worried about.”
“Why would you be worried about me?”
“Things are going down Codi, big things. I wish I could tell you exactly what, but there is no doubt it has to do with you.”
“Yoshi, you are being fucking paranoid. What danger could I possibly be in? If nothing else this school practically grants me asylum and immunity from all our parents’ bullshit.”
“This is serious Codi. Mom and Dad have been so absorbed they haven’t even bothered to check on what I am doing. I have been snooping around and they are into something bad.”
“Of course they are into something bad, they are evil as shit. When aren’t they into something bad?”
“Damnit Codi listen! Everyone knows the world is in a tenuous peace. Countries have been preparing for years, your school is testament of that. The thing is, I think the dam is about to break, and mom and dad have been supporting foreign interests with the intent to drag you into it.”
“What?! How fucking dumb could they be? They must know that if anything comes back on them it is damn near immediate treason.”
“Even though we are second generation Americans, you know how strongly mom and dad have always felt about Japan. I think they know about your intent to topple them and take the company too. That is why they are implicating you as an accomplice.”
“Accomplice?! I hate those fuckers!”
“I know, but if you keep your hands clean and they get caught, the company immediately falls to you. Based on records I thought we were still public. It seems mom and dad have been buying back the company piece by piece for years now. They own 98% of it outright.”
“Fuck me… This is awesome! I hate dealing with red tape bullshit!”
“You won’t get the chance. They have been implicating you as a secret plant to spy on the happenings of Sophangence so it can be taken down from the inside. Everything you have done in rebellion plays perfectly into what they purport as your cover.”
“Yoshi, where are you getting this information?”
“I’ve told you, they have been obsessed! This place is a fortress so no one finds out about Hina or me. Because of that, they are fairly lax with the security in their personal areas. I have been snooping daily, and the stuff I have found is beyond disturbing. You need to protect yourself.”
Codi was having a difficult time coming to terms with the heartfelt and dire warning from her older brother. She could not begin to claim she was tuned into the latest happenings and murmurs around the world, but a world war seemed unlikely. She wanted to believe Yoshi since there was absolutely no reason to make up anything he had told her, but if what he said was true, life as they knew it could change at any moment, and somehow she was entwined in it.
With his information disseminated, Yoshi said his goodbyes, reminding Codi to stay safe and make moves to prove she had no involvement with her parents’ schemes. For a long while she sat there thinking about what it all meant for her and what course would prove the most effective for her. Though they constantly traded jabs at one another, she remembered Phavian was just in the other room and there was no one else she could trust such information to outside of him. Lumbering back into the living room in a stupor as her mind raced, she was immediately met by the barbed tongue of Phavian.
“The fuck? You bust one off or something in there? What took so long, and who were you yelling at?”
His words went completely unheard as she autonomously moved toward the sofa. Seeing that she intended to sit down next to him, he quickly shifted upright. Still dazed as she lowered herself next to him, he watched in silence until she finally spoke.
“Yoshi thinks my parents are helping induce a world war, and not for America’s benefit.”
Clearly not what he was expecting to hear from her, he does a double take as he checks to make sure he understood. “Wait what? Yoshi as in your brother? The same one who is locked away in the world’s most luxurious prison? Is this some kind of joke?”
“That’s what I said, but Phave… his voice… I don’t think I have ever heard him more serious or scared in his life.”
“Isn’t this what you have always wanted? For your parents to eat shit and die?”
“Yes! Not be potentially involved in
some treasonous conspiracy to incite war! If they go down like that, the Aya name will be ruined. What will I have left for Yoshi and Hina if everything is in ruins?!”
“I think you are just be a bit overdramatic about this whole thing. Sure, I have been on missions that hint at how precarious the balance is, but it has been that way for decades now. It is like the major players of the world are all highly skilled dancers in an intricate production they have been performing forever. What could possibly happen that could tip the scales that severely?”
“I don’t know Phave, this kind of shit has never been my thing. You and Anaar jet all across the globe learning about this type of shit. I just had my first mission and it was no more than a simple corporate politicking job.”
“That is exactly my point. I think you are all worked up for no reason. Even if worst came to worst and we were plunged into war, though they make us out to be some sort of human weapons, do you really think governments would trust their victories to a bunch of kids? The military would get sent out long before we were ever expected to do anything.”
“You know firsthand on a deeply personal level that there are more than enough of us at this school who far exceed entire platoons, if not armies themselves.”
“You are talking about Anaar.”
“Of course him, how could I not be talking about him!? Even still, you, me, Maggie, even country Dan, we knew what we signed up for! Fucking Stef can literally put anyone on steroids, empowered or not! That alone could be game changing! These are people close to us! Did we forget there is another prepubescent Anaar running around that he is personally training?!”
“Look, I get it. This shit is freaky. Thus far we have only really put our abilities to the test in a controlled, almost theoretical level. I still think it is far too presumptuous to be freaking out over some doomsday intel from your brother. Even if it does turn out what he is saying is true, that your parents are even scummier than we had imagined, and the world is on a decline into war, you have nothing to worry about. You are protected here, and you make very clear you have nothing to do with them.”
Apotheosis (Song of Sophangence Book 3) Page 27