Seeking Strays

I took a break to go watch Cohort 1 and 3 go through their joint combat courses. Most of the time, I’d been carefully tracking the distance between Sylvie and River. If he got too close, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull him aside for some, ahem, private combat lessons.

The other students didn’t escape my eye, either. Most of them were sixteen or just about to turn sixteen, so Sylvie was actually one of the youngest ones amongst them. Her birthday had been right before the cut off point for the Awakening Ceremony. That meant I had to watch all of them all the more closely.

The combat instructor, a grizzled old veteran, had been running them through basic exercises and techniques without getting into their abilities much. It was smart. If they couldn’t even handle the basics, how could they handle actually fighting with their abilities? 

Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way. One of the kids, Patrick O’Reily, stopped in the middle of the exercise. He was of the Cohort 1 kids and originally from Thunderbird City. “Instructor Leeroy, what’s the point in all of this?”

Leeroy waved his hand to the rest of the students to take a break. “What do you mean?”

”I mean, why go through all of this stupid stuff. The whole point of us being here is because we’re Awoken. Why aren’t we training for that?” The kid had a nasally whine to his voice. If I remembered correctly from his file, he was the only child of two corporate drones. “This stuff is a total waste of time.”

A few of the other students nodded their heads in agreement with Patrick. My easy-going expression slowly died in its place as I stared at them. This wasn’t good. Awoken abilities were strong, naturally. Only relying on them was a sure fire way of dying, though. In the underworld, there were even entire groups of people dedicated to hunting Awoken. They obviously weren’t impossible to kill.

“Instructor, mind if I take this one?” I stood up from the bleachers, drawing the eyes of the sixteen kids in the room. The best way to approach this was to dismantle that misconception all in one go.

”Canary Vargriev?” One of the Awoken whispered with a confused expression. She smirked, and nudged a moody girl to her side. “What’s she going to teach us? How to groom a stuffed animal?”

My ears twitched as I heard a few of the nearby students snickered. Sometimes having good hearing wasn’t all that it cracked up to be. I looked down at Vigil, and he stared up at me with slightly glowing red eyes. Heh, right. Probably best I leave him behind for this one.

”Canary Vargriev?” Leeroy looked back toward me. He hesitated for just a moment before nodding head. “Feel free.”

I set Vigil down on the bleachers so he’d have a better view of the gym, and moved down to the floor. I moved over to the group, and motioned toward a mat set down across the gym to the side. “How about a little practical demonstration instead of just words, though?”

”You mean—hah, you want to fight me?” The kid looked at me with a stupefied expression. “Really? That hardly seems fair.”

Really? I guess he had a point. I was a trained and dangerous Canary, while this kid was just a little brat who’d only just awakened his ability. Patrick’s combat class records weren’t exactly high in any of his previous schooling either.

”Nah.” Another one of the kids laughed at his expense. “She survived the Mire. You’re about to get your ass kicked.”

”Yeah, survived.” Patrick shot him a look of disdain. “Totally not the same thing as fighting.”

Sylvie’s ears stood up alertly, and she glared at the boy. The anger lasted for all of a second before it melted into almost pity? “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

Was she defending me? I felt my heart surge with warmth, and clutched at my chest happily. Here I was thinking she still hated me. I mean, she barely even said anything this morning on the ride to the Academy. 

“Maybe.” Patrick actually backed down a smidge. “An Awoken against a mundane still isn’t fair.”

This kid had no idea how unfair this fight actually was. I’d limit myself to the strength and speed of a normal person for this one, though. ”Fights never are. What’s your ability?”

“Steelskin.” His halo popped out proudly. It was a soft gray that looked like metal ingots interlinking into a circle. A moment later, his skin slowly turned a blue-gray. “It—“

”Turns your skin to steel.” I read the file, so ‘course I knew that. I was just asking for the benefit of the other kids. It was a relatively weak ability, to be honest. There were plenty of Calamities that could bend steel like paper. “Pretty self-explanatory.”

“I guess.” Patrick moved over to the mat alongside me. ”Are you sure this is alright, though? I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Trust me, kid, hurting her is the last thing that should be on your mind.” Instructor Leeroy laughed, and shook his head. “How about you worry about yourself first? Don’t go too hard on him, Canary.”

Nothing that’d bruise, naturally. I didn’t want to be known as a brutal… What was my position? Technically, Quinn—or Guardian Tidebreak—was the freshman Field Instructor. I was her assistant? Did that make me a TA? Assistant Field Instructor? I’d have to ask her when I got the chance. “Give us a count?”

”Sure, sure… Three! Two! One! Start!” Leeroy shouted.

Patrick charged across the mat with zero finesse to engage like a bull. I had half a mind to play the range game and stay just out of reach. That would show the weaknesses of his ability, but wouldn’t quite hammer home why fighting techniques were important even for Awoken.

He closed in and threw a hesitant punch. I grabbed his arm and pulled him into a shoulder throw. He weighed a ton thanks to his ability, so I used his own momentum to pull through the throw instead of only relying on brute strength. The kid slammed into the mat before he could even realize what was happening.

My ear twitched up. From beyond the mat, one of the other Awoken let out a stifled laugh at how easily I’d taken him down. The Canaries were paying attention now. Interestingly, the other Awoken were too. Patrick himself stared up at me with an interesting concoction of bewilderment and embarrassment.

I side-eyed Sylvie standing off to the side. Her tail whipped back and forth in unmistakable pride in me. It would’ve been perfect if she wasn’t leaned over whispering to River so low I couldn’t hear her. That boy… 

My irritation redirected to the kid still on the ground in front of me. ”You have zero finesse, Patrick. Anyone with even a bit of training could handle you at the moment. A Calamity would tear you apart and eat you for dinner.”

Patrick shot to his feet. Although he looked embarrassed by the extremely fast defeat, he still had a bit of confidence left. “That’s just because I haven’t trained my ability yet! That first one was a fluke.”

”You…” I shook my head. We could be here all day, and the result would never change. I knew that—I just needed him to know that too. That foolish confidence? I’d crush it till there was barely anything left. “Do you want to try again?”

”Yeah!” He charged once more without waiting for a count from Leeroy. 

This time, I didn’t wait for him to get close and instead launched myself at him. I stopped just shy and swept his legs out from under him. The kid hit the mat hard. Before he could even take a breath, I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him into an arm bar.

“Let go!” He struggled against me. His every movement just made my arm bar tighter. His ability gave him durability and striking force, though did nothing for his strength. It was all too easy to hold on.

And hold on I did until he exhausted himself trying to break free. Did I feel a little bad about bullying a sixteen year old kid? Maybe. Everything I hammered home now, though, would hopefully save his life in the future when he went against opponents that weren’t so kind as me. 

“I… I give up.” He quit struggling in my grasp, and tiredly sagged against the mat. The defeat wafting off of him was thick enough it made my ears twitch back hesitantly.

“Don’t feel too disheartened.” I let go of him, and smoothly slid to my feet. I dropped my hand down to help him up. I wanted to break their egos, not their spirits.

He stared up at my hand for a moment before accepting it, and allowing me to haul him up to his feet. His halo faded, as did the gray shade of his skin. “How could I not?”

”It’s just the gap of experience.” I waved my hand toward Leeroy. “The academy put him here for a reason, yeah? He wouldn’t be teaching you something pointless. Just trust in the process. Training with your abilities will come eventually.”

”I… okay.” Patrick still looked a little unwilling, though backed down.

”That goes for the rest of you, too.” I shifted my attention to the rest of the class. After the first throw, they’d started to watch much closer. “Your abilities are strong, but they won’t always save you. Learn the basics, or you won’t have much of a chance to even get experience. There are no short cuts for this kind of thing.”

Clapping erupted from behind me, and Quinn stood up from the bleachers. I noticed her coming in, ‘course, but I’d been too focused on Patrick to wave at her. “Well said! She isn’t wrong. You kids have no idea how many times the basics have saved my life in the field.”

Several of the kids perked up at seeing Quinn enter the room. Vanessa, the White Rabbit Awoken from Cohort 3, shot her hand into the air. “Oh, Guardian Tidebreak! Can you share one of your stories?!”

”I would love to.” Quinn grinned, though for once didn’t engage. “You’re in class now, though. Come find me sometime when you're free, and I'll tell you all about Reyna and my adventures over the years.”

“Right, back to it! Twenty reps.” Instructor Leeroy didn’t leave much more room for break, and shouted orders. Once they started getting to work, he moved over to Quinn and I. “You taught before, Canary?”

”Just my sister.” And I didn’t know if that could really even be considered teaching. “Why? Did I do something wrong?”

“No, it was a good demonstration.” He shrugged. “Just maybe next time let the other kids interact a bit more? Let them ask questions, or ask questions yourself to make them think. Remember, you’re teaching a class, not an individual. Don’t get too caught up on the person you’re demonstrating to.”

“That… Thank you, instructor.” He was right, ‘course. I was so focused on Patrick that I forgot to actually teach the rest of them. A frown filled my lips.

“Don’t make that face.” He patted my shoulder. “Teaching takes practice too, Canary.”

The rest of the class passed without incident. Well, other than me tiredly rambling to Quinn all my conspiracy theories about River actually being some Calamity in disguise. She seemed far more amused by my theories than I expected from a Guardian whose job was to take care of Calamities.

“Why don’t you just take the rest of the day off early, Reyna?” Quinn asked once we got back to her office. It was much, much bigger than mine.

”Is that allowed?” I was on salary, so hours didn’t really matter. That being said, if I was at work, I should probably do work.

”How often have you taken work home?” Quinn shrugged. “I’ll take care of it. Go get some rest, yeah? You look like you’re about to fall over.”

”… yeah, ‘kay.” It wouldn’t hurt. ‘Sides, I had my laptop back home so I could finish up filling out all the forms that we’d need. 

— — —

I carefully laid out the last of the ingredients for the cupcakes, and shuffled back over to the couch. It was ready. Everything was out so that we could start as soon as she got home. The perishables were still in the fridge, but in easy reach so everything would be easy.

‘Course, setting everything up wasn’t the only thing I did once I got home. I did take a short nap like Quinn wanted. I just… well, I didn’t get to sleep for long before a nightmare got me. Thirty minutes was good enough for a nap anyway, wasn’t it?

Sylvie’s key rattled in the lock, and my ears perked up straight. In an instant, I wiped the gloomy expression off my face and replaced it with a bright smile. Just because I had a rough day at work didn’t mean I should have a bad day at home too. I hoped. I really hoped.

The door slid open, and Sylvie tossed her backpack to the side. Her nose twitched toward the kitchen, though her amber eyes locked onto me. “Hey, Reyna.”

”Sylvie.” I smiled at her, though I couldn’t help but notice she lacked her usual bright smile. The air in the apartment felt stuffy, and I pulled uncomfortably at the choker around my neck. “Welcome home.”

”Cupcakes?” She shut the door behind her, and the lock clicked softly. I expected her to be just as excited about this as I was… was I wrong?

Maybe I shouldn’t have set them out? My shoulders curled inward, and my tail flopped into my lap. What if she didn’t want to bake them anymore? I just assumed—I was being a bitch and assuming stuff, wasn’t I? She was probably tired. “I-if you don’t want too—“

“Reyna… just don’t.” She sighed heavily. “I may still be mad at you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love and want to spend time with you.”

”You’re still mad?” My ears flopped downward in distress. I was hoping the entire thing would blow over with some sleep. She didn’t look angry in the class earlier either, so why—?

Sylvie just stared at me for several long moments without speaking up. Every passing second felt worse than a scalpel digging into me. “The fact you can’t even understand why I’m mad makes me even angrier.”

Ugh, why’d teenage girls have to be so complicated and confusing? Was I this confusing back when I was her age? “I’m sorry.”

”Just…. Let me go clean up.” She sighed once more, and shook her head. My sister looked downright exhausted. “We can make them after I get out of the shower.”

”Really?!” My spine straightened, and my tail thwacked back and forth like a plane about to take off. I coughed lightly, and tried to reign in some of my excitement. “‘Kay. I’ll just… I’ll wait for you.”

”Yeah.” She glanced back at me, and her warm amber eyes dropped down to my tail. For the first time since she entered the apartment, a small smile curled at her lips.