August 4, 2152
When Emory's alarm went off at 5:30am, she turned it off immediately since she was already awake. She hadn't slept well but was hoping this new training regimen would put some pep in her step. Shuffling to the restroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her bright red curls looked more like a bird's nest, causing her to sigh at the sight. Of course, she was waiting until after the morning training to do anything about it seriously, so, in the meantime, she bundled it up into a small, fragmented bun and used a few hair clips to keep it in place. Surprisingly, the other three were getting ready when Emory came out of the restroom. Tana looked half asleep still, but Sam and Tethys were almost ready. All four of them packed a change of clothes for after the workout and left for the small holodeck. As they approached the area, they quickly found Innes due to his large stature. He was patiently waiting for the doors to open at 6am; on the floor curled up next to him was none other than Gatrie, snoozing peacefully.
"Wakey, wakey," Tethys said quietly as they reached the boys, "Time to get up, Gatrie."
"You're doing it wrong. Let me wake him," Tana said with a devilish grin on her face. She reached down above his feet and started slowly generating ice crystals around them. Within a minute, a large shoe of ice covered each foot, and Tana gingerly lifted the top foot into the air. "Gatrie, wake up!" she yelled as she dropped the foot which caused the ice shoes to slam into each other and shatter loudly.
Gatrie shot up quickly and blurted, "Who's there?"
The group just laughed at his expense. Then Innes raised his hand, and the group quieted down."I'm not a teacher, so I don't really know what to have you all do to practice," Innes admitted, "But I've been training myself for several years now with the same regimen that I redesigned for you all. I have faith in it and in you all. Each of you will be sparring against a drone with the same fighting style as you; they will be set to reactive, meaning they will attack back and try to deflect but will not pursue you or attack you first." Since Tethys and Gatrie didn't use a physical type of fighting style, Innes set them up to fight against a shielded drone. The objective for them was to break through the shield.
Finally, 6 am rolled around, and people started filing into the arena. The group stood on the platform while Innes input some information into the training console. Then it whirled away with the group to a separate spot and shone a bright light. When the light faded, six dummy drones stood in front of the teens while the room had changed to a beautiful prairie valley. Innes walked over to the drones and, using a marker he pulled from his pocket, wrote the name of each person, one per drone. Then he called back, "Okay, each one of us has an assigned drone. Every fifteen minutes, or five times during this session, these drones will move to a new location. Be aware that each drone is only initially set up to deal with the person whose name is written on it. So, if Gatrie attacks Emory's, for example, it will attempt to close the distance and fight with you as if you were a hand-to-hand combatant. This will allow us melee fighters to learn against different styles and teach the ranged attackers accuracy. This is designed to also be stamina training. Light intensity but try not to rest until the end."
He returned to the console and clicked an icon that caused the drone's eyes to pop open. The drones spread out a few feet from each other and took distinct stances depending on the name written on the front. Emory looked across to her drone which had taken a relaxed stance with two knife-hands ready to do battle. Innes looked down the line, saw that everyone was ready, and gave the signal to start.
Emory was the first off the line, charging in even before Gatrie could line up a shot. She threw a palm strike towards the drone, but it countered with a knife-hand swung from the side that edged her strike just over its shoulder. "This will be harder than I thought," Emory realized as she attempted another palm strike, yet it was countered in the same manner as before. Unfortunately for Emory, this left her wide open to a counterstrike as the drone shot out its hands as palm strikes and shoved Emory back a few feet. She glared at the drone and took a deep breath, analyzing the situation. The drone was faster than she was, but it seemed weaker as well. When she went back in, she switched to a knife-hand to counter the drone. It connected, and Emory could feel the give in the drone's arm. She smirked as the drone moved its other hand to support the pressure continuing to come from Emory's chop. This was a crucial mistake for the drone which Emory capitalized on by shoving a spear-hand jab right into the drone's side. The drone was sent back several feet yet robotically returned to sparring with Emory without incidence.
She continued with her strategy of overpowering the drone to gain the upper hand; it worked rather well until they had to switch. Emory was paired with Sam's drone, which would have been fine, except Innes had designed the drone to spar with Sam's bear form. This time, Emory was struggling to overpower it without tapping into her magik more. Instead of increasing the power in her strikes, she decided to try outmaneuvering the drone instead. However, she hadn't learned much about footwork from martial class yet, so she couldn't get an angle on the drone. Emory realized she would need to learn some defensive stances if she were going to fight this kind of opponent.
She fared even worse against Innes's drone due to the high level of skill Innes had. It took all her skills just to block counterattacks, let alone land hits of her own. Emory had a long way to go, but she had her magik to meet the gap for now and was a quick learner. Even Innes noticed her bout with his drone was more skillful than her bout with him in class the day before. He estimated she would be a match for him in two or three months at the pace she was learning, a level that had taken him a decade to achieve. Her magik control was far better to boot, making him wonder just how talented she was. Because they were all just learning, Tana just fought against her own. Fighting against a weapon without one yourself was an advanced technique, one these teens were not ready yet.
Training continued in the same rotating way until 7:15am when Innes stopped the simulation and told everyone to take as much time as they wanted before breakfast to regain their stamina. They all sat for twenty minutes before heading to the locker rooms to get cleaned up for the rest of the day. After breakfast, they parted ways and went to their martial classes. Serah Boyle spent the first thirty minutes of class reviewing the three open hand strikes. She also mentioned that they would begin working on footwork on Monday. Though the class make up hadn't changed much from Thursday, there were a few changes. After reviewing the information, she left the students to spar in fifteen-minute increments with a water break every fourth rotation.
By now, Boyle had narrowed down her top five students that she expected to stay in the class on Monday. Innes and Emory easily made the list; in fact, Boyle noticed Emory had improved even from yesterday. "She's definitely one to watch. She's progressing faster than any student in her generation," Boyle mused, "And that boy she came with has been training for years. He may be the best now, but you'd better watch her, boy." The third person in the group was another boy who had been there all three days named Herc. Though he stood eye level with Innes, the similarities stopped there. Herc was wiry all over, even his fingers were long, and his bald head also stuck out for people this age. He was a part of this premier group due to his flexibility and footwork. As talented as Innes at striking, Herc was as competent at avoiding strikes. Though the two boys never sparred against each other during this intro period, Boyle made a mental note to pair them up in the future.
Rounding out the top five were two girls, both surprising. The first was a small black-haired girl named Gwen. His tiny stature aided her agility as did her incredible speed. There was something else though; when the students were sparring, they were only supposed to use magic in their strikes. Oddly though, her opponents seemed to weaken the longer they fought. Boyle assumed Gwen was a hidden Council child with some strange dark magik sphere. Still, Gwen was the fastest in the class by some distance.
The last of the five was surprisingly Sam. She was a clear second in application of magik into her strikes, yet there was something else. Boyle had looked up almost all the students in her class by the third day, just a quick browse of each one. She saw that Sam was an open Council family member. Though the Rice clan had a sphere that was restricted to their clan, either by birth or by bond, their Shifting sphere was well known. Boyle knew that, technically, this girl was holding back since no one outside of this upper group and Boyle herself would be capable of doing combat with a magik bear.
Towards the end of class at the end of the last water break, Gwen walked up to Emory. "Would you like to spar with me?" she casually asked. Whenever Emory had a free moment, she would scope out some of the other kids and had even watched Gwen spar once. Emory knew that this girl could be a good challenge. Emory smiled and nodded her head as the class started back up again. The two girls circled each other at first, but ultimately, Gwen was the first to strike. It was almost a blur to most people; however, Emory's eyesight seemed to have improved since fully accepting her Arcane sphere. Her reactions, though, were not up to par with her eyesight and only just managed to block the spear-hand with a downward palm strike.
During her morning workout, Emory realized while fighting Sam's drone that it was more beneficial to redirect an opponent's strikes than to block them outright. This strategy was especially useful if the opponent was significantly stronger or faster than Emory because the motion would have more momentum. So, when Emory redirected Gwen's jab, she moved it just slightly and let her speed continue in the same direction. Then Emory jutted out her own spear-hand towards the side of Gwen passing by. Unfortunately, Gwen was fast enough to pull in most of her body, and Emory's jab just grazed Gwen's side. The two girls pulled apart after this interaction and looked each other up and down. Gwen hadn't met someone able to dodge her strikes besides Herc, who was a freak contortionist in her mind. Emory was astounded that her body was reacting so quickly. Then she realized it wasn't her muscle memory but her magik memory that was reacting. She smirked and motioned for Gwen to make another move. Gwen snorted and charged toward Emory.
"She's overconfident," Gwen thought, "That will be how I win." When Gwen went to strike, she started with a spear-hand again, yet when Emory deflected it, she was ready with a knife-hand strike from above. Emory still had a smile on her face when she used her other hand to deflect the chop with an off-balanced palm strike. Emory jumped out of the way, and Gwen fell forward flat on her face. The force of Gwen's charge kicked up some dust and made a loud thud, catching the attention of many surrounding students. Gwen wiped the dirt off her shirt as she stood up and glared at Emory several feet away. Emory just stood there, smiling back with her eyes glowing like sapphires.
Emory pointed at Gwen, "Is that all the faster you can go, or can you go faster?" Emory was clearing challenging Gwen to a full hand-to-hand spar instead of just the open hand strikes. Gwen smiled as she threw her hands to her sides, and a crimson aura grew over them. This aura also covered her feet and head, obscuring them from view. When she charged at Emory, she was much faster than before, appearing as a faint blur bordering on teleportation. Emory wasn't just taunting Gwen; she also wanted to push herself again like she had against Innes. In the moment it took Gwen to charge in, Emory had covered her arms, legs, and head in a clear flame. Gwen appeared with a knife-hand chop to Emory's head but was stopped short by Emory's palm strike. The two stared at each other as Gwen was in the air to make this strike.
"That's a lot faster than before," Emory commented. "But you'll find my shield is still strong enough to block your attacks."
"You're pretty confident for a student. My name is Gwen. What's yours?" Gwen asked as she hopped back away from Emory.
"Nice to meet you, Gwen. I'm Emory. That's a cool sphere you have there," Emory replied, "I feel it trying to fight my magik even though we're not touching anymore." Emory shook her hands like they were wet, and little crimson droplets came off them.
Gwen frowned, "I could say the same thing about yours. No one outside of my clan has ever brushed that off like you just did." The level of this spar had jumped several steps, and those around quickly stopped their own matches to watch this one. Boyle was on the other side of the class when it started and didn't immediately notice the spar had gotten serious.
Emory took advantage of Gwen's shock and decided to become the aggressor. Though she moved a bit slower than Gwen, Emory quickly closed the distance and revealed her own knife-hand attack over her head. Gwen easily jolted out of the way but wasn't expecting Emory to have her opposite hand ready with a palm strike. Speed won out again, yet Gwen had to block this strike instead of avoiding it which made the crucial difference. Emory, having much more magik in her blows, shoved Gwen more than ten feet back. The attack also knocked the wind out of Gwen and made her gasp for breath."You may be much faster on your feet than me," Emory declared, "But your defense is weak. In these close quarters, I have the advantage. Surrender and be done."
"Awful cocky after three bouts, aren't you?" Gwen laughed. Then she dashed forward but seemed to disappear right before striking. Emory felt the magik rush by her, so her body, under the control of magik, spun around to block. But she never needed to for another person had stepped in between and grabbed them both.
Boyle snapped, "Who told you two you could do a full spar? What if someone had gotten hurt?" Neither girl had seen Boyle come out of the crowd; it wasn't surprising considering Boyle's speed at this distance was just as fast as teleporting. Boyle had one hand each from Emory and Gwen buried in the ground and glared at them. Moments later Emory and Gwen had stopped channeling magik and were just looking at Boyle. Though she was smaller as well, she had moved incredibly fast and easily overpowered their attacks. As she released the students, they both grumbled an apology to the other person and to Boyle.
Emory was a little bummed because Gwen was starting to push her a little further. It only felt worse since Emory never thought she was in danger. Honestly, if Gwen's last strike had connected, it could have been a serious injury for Emory, but she didn't know that. No other sparring matches got as heated or as interesting for that matter. And after martial class, the day seemed to fly by. Lunch quickly led to homeroom class where they continued to talk about the battles that defined the first war. Instead of paying full attention, Emory thought about what kind of sphere Gwen may have had. When class finished the group went straight to dinner as to not repeat the same mistake as the day prior. As they sat down, Emory asked Sam, "Did you see that sparring match I had against the little girl?"
"I didn't catch the beginning, but once you kicked it up a notch, I saw most of it. Why do you ask?" Sam responded.
"The sphere she had was strange," Emory described the magik, "It was as if it had a lingering effect. I was lucky to have a large part of my body covered in magik too because it seemed to have a sapping effect."
"It sounds like a dark sphere of some kind. Though they are rarer than primal spheres, it would make sense for someone with that sphere to take Hand-to-Hand class. Those spheres aren't meant to be channeled into weapons. What color was her magik?" Sam informed her in between bites.
Emory thought back for a minute and then replied, "They were crimson I believe." Sam choked on the food for a moment, drawing the attention of the rest of the group.
"Crimson? Are you sure?" Sam questioned as she painfully swallowed her food.
"Yes, I'm sure," Emory said anxiously, "What's wrong with Crimson?"
Sam pushed her food away and started, "Crimson is the color of the Blood sphere, the rarest of the necrotic spheres. They are one of the hidden Council clans. I'm surprised they sent one of their children here."
"What's a hidden Council family?" Tana asked with a mouth full of food, "Are you from one too?"
"My clan is called an open Council family which means that, although we keep Shifting secret, anyone who joins my clan or is born into it can learn it. The Grado clan, Blood sphere practitioners, is a hidden clan which means that only those born into the clan can learn the Blood sphere. Beyond that, the Grado clan isn't known to the world as a Council family, so that Gwen probably has a fake last name," Sam elaborated.
Tethys interjected, "Why are some Council families open and some hidden?"
"It stems from the decision Lady Black made at the beginning of the war to reveal magik to the world," Sam explained, "See, she's the Head Witch, so the others must follow her, but there were several families that didn't want to reveal their secrets to the rest of humanity. There were three families that never revealed their secret spheres to the world: the Grado clan, the Orson clan, known as Necromancers, and the Grey clan, or the Psychics."
Gatrie chimed in, "So what, these three families just taught the other spheres instead?"
"Exactly, that's why there is public training for many of the spheres," Sam continued, "Since that decision was made though, there's a rumor that those three families are plotting to do something. Lady Black spends most of her time away from the Council, but that's not unusual for the Head Witch or Warlock. I guess some families think they're better than others." Emory nodded her head in disgruntled agreement. She knew the universe favored the strong, and the strong often wanted to keep their power for themselves. In her mind, it was a miracle that out of the fifteen spheres, seven could be learned by anyone, and out of the eleven Council families, seven or eight allowed entries through a contract of some sort.
Dinner was otherwise filled with wild gossip or other banter, but Emory wondered about Gwen. When they were in line, she had looked around the cafeteria and not spotted her. On the other hand, a small girl like that would probably easily hide in a crowd. Emory paid attention just long enough to hear Innes give the group the weekend off for training when she noticed a message notification pop up on her phone."If you want to keep moving forward, meet me outside in the courtyard at 6am tomorrow morning," Innes messaged Emory. Emory quickly responded with a thumbs up emoji and put her phone away and continued to think about Gwen's magik. Dinner ended and the group parted ways, eager to relax after their first week of school. When the girls got back to the room, Tana and Tethys hopped on their beds while Sam grabbed Emory's library book.
"Are you going to read some more?" Sam asked as she turned to hand the book to Emory, "I thought about it over dinner after you asked me and figured we could find some information in here." Emory sighed because she had planned to try to take the night off. Every moment of every day recently she was learning something new about herself or her family or a new technique; it was building up. She looked at the book at first and then up at Sam's best puppy dog impression. Emory rolled her eyes and shooed Sam over to the bed.
Emory warned, "We're just going to look at the bit about the Blood sphere and that's it. This week has been exhausting." Sam frowned but couldn't protest; after all, Emory had seemed to learn a lot about herself this week, Sam considered. Emory flipped to the section in the book that talked about powers; however, she accidentally turned to the first one, Arcane. She paused for a moment while she decided whether to stay true to her word. The moment became a minute, then she quickly found herself reading this instead.
After five minutes, Sam was losing her patience and whispered, "Anything good in there?"
"Yes! Well, probably," Emory confessed, "I accidentally flipped to the Arcane section and started reading it. There's a lot more to it than a normal sphere." Emory could attest to its divergence from other spheres because, even though she didn't have one, she had studied them in depth to try to decide which one to pick, at least the publicly known ones.
"Don't leave us in suspense. What does it say?" Tethys interrupted, surprising the pair on Emory's bed.
"I haven't gotten very far because I've had to reread several parts," Emory asserted, "I guarantee you won't believe most of what I'm going to say. First, activating the Arcane sphere activates the magik in the person's body and begins enhancing it. The more magik one can keep inside, the stronger the body can be made. I've got to be honest with you all; I've already noticed this happening. For example, I can see when someone is channeling magik and where they're going to release it."
Tana sat up, "Wait, you mean you can see where we're going to attack before our body even moves? Master fighters have troubles doing that and couldn't use their battle experience on a blaster!"
"That's only the first part! It says those effects will start to happen to my whole body," Emory exclaimed, "It also says Arcane was the original sphere, that all other spheres came from it."
"We kind of knew that for the primal spheres, but it's interesting to learn that all the spheres had their starts with Arcane. Does that mean that you can cast any sphere?" Sam wondered out loud.
"The book is clear that Arcane only allows complete control over the primal spheres," Emory elaborated, "Otherwise I have to learn the other spheres like normal. Still, it's like having a bunch of spheres in one, though the book does say that control over the primal spheres doesn't happen until level three. Anyway, now I'm going to read the information about the Blood sphere."
Emory went back to reading quietly to herself while the others got back on their mobile devices. What she read was less like a spellbook for the sphere and more like a guide to using it with the Arcane sphere, so it read very fast. She finished in only a couple minutes and shut the book loudly to let the other girls know she was done.
"The book says that the Blood sphere isn't usually mixed with the Arcane sphere," Emory told them, "Apparently, Blood sphere works best either in hand-to-hand combat or as a blaster. It also said it could be difficult to use it at the same time as Arcane magik because the goal is similar: overpower the opponent. Then it gave a quick list what the tiers are called and named the Grado family and practitioners."
"I knew they were an old family, but for them to be listed in this," Sam trailed off.
"That reminds me. Sam," Tethys started, "You have said several times that the clans change. Does that happen frequently?"
Sam shook her head, "I have described the situation incorrectly if you got that impression. The same clans that originally performed magik have always performed magik. The membership of the Council changed most recently about fifty years ago, to include the last three clans. Before then, it had been a hundred years since the membership had changed,"
"Why weren't those three families on the Council before?" Tana questioned, "Did they get kicked out for a while or something?"
"Honestly, I'm not too sure what they did, but you're right about the punishment part. Typically, you're not kicked out; your vote on issues just doesn't count. But I do know this thing a hundred and fifty years ago did change the number of members from nine to eight. For some reason, my parents didn't really teach me about that hundred-year gap," Sam replied as she rubbed her chin.
"Well let's think about it," Emory postulated, "If one clan had infighting and became three, that would explain it all pretty neatly, don't you think? No reason to think about the past." This was the best theory she could come up with quickly because honestly, she just wanted some peace and quiet. The girls shrugged and nodded while Sam moved over to her bed. She could tell that Emory wanted some space. Emory smiled, grabbed some headphones, queued up some relaxing outdoor sounds, and lay back on her bed. She made sure to set her alarm even if she did fall asleep; she imagined the training in the morning with Innes would be essentially more quiet time as he didn't speak much. It only took a few minutes of listening to mountain brooks and bird calls to put her out.
Once everyone had drifted to sleep, Tethys sat up quietly in her bed. She tiptoed out of her bed to the bathroom, slowly closed the door, put a rolled-up towel at the base, and hopped into the glass door shower for good measure. Clearly, she didn't want to be overheard. She popped in the earbuds she had brought with her and dialed a number on her phone. Adeep man's voice answered on the other side, "Agent number please."
"One hundred," Tethys whispered.
"Searching the data," the man responded, "Please hold. I've pulled up your case. Report."
Tethys started, "No new news. Just reporting in that I've settled in. Also, I'm looking for any information we have on a race called the Fae."
"Checking records for the Fae now," the man replied, "No information found. Have you discovered something unrelated to the mission?"
"I'm not sure yet. What about Hexbloods?" Tethys asked.
"Nothing on Hexbloods either," the man's voice was getting annoyed, "Just what have you stumbled across, Agent 100?"
Tethys bit her lip, "I don't know yet. Through another person, I came across some interesting but unproven information. I didn't call emptyhanded though. I have the names of the last three families. Orson, Grado, and Grey."
"And I was beginning to think you had called for no reason," the man curtly said, "Please check in in a month." The call ended and Tethys thought about what she knew right now. When she got right down to it, she had a lot of conjecture and no solid leads. Although Sam did make an interesting comment about the hidden families using fake names. For now, she decided she would see what she could find out about this Gwen girl and hope for the best. Like a spy, she quietly returned the bathroom to its original condition and silently returned to bed.