He paced back and forth in front of us. “You are all a very, very long way from that day. You aren’t Capes. You aren’t even Capes-in-training. Not yet. You’re first-years, the lowest of the low, and judging by what I saw on Monday, we have our work cut out for us.”
He stopped in front of Erik Thorsson. “A Titan who collapses after less than twenty minutes of combat. So much for going all night long.” Next was Silt. “An Earthshaker who drops like a stone.” Ishmae got a respectful nod and no commentary, and then he was in front of Paladin. “And a Stalwart who can’t defeat a Crow in hand-to-hand combat.”
Matthew sat stiff, cheeks flushed, and said nothing.
“Who here knows what Paladin did wrong?” Nikolai finally asked the class.
“He lost?” suggested Winter.
“Just like you did?” The teacher shook his head. “Everyone loses. No shame in that.”
Winter scowled. I hadn’t seen her match with Erin Pearson, a Wind Dancer who was only saved from ginger-ness by her less than pasty skin, but suddenly I really, really wanted to. With all that silky white hair, Winter could have been almost cute, even with the nose—after all, who I was to talk about noses?—but so far, she’d been every bit as cold as her namesake.
“Anyone else have an answer?” asked Nikolai.
“He quit.” Those were the first words I’d heard Alan Jackson speak, his voice harsh and cold.
“Damn straight he quit.” Nikolai let the words fall like an executioner’s axe.
“Oh come on! You saw what happened!” protested London, who looked as good from behind and above as she had outside Control on Monday. “The Crow wasn’t going to stop.”
The Crow was getting sick of being called that. And of being treated like a fucking plague victim, for that matter. After four days of cold shoulders and silence from literally every attractive woman in my class—not to mention a surprising lack of progress in my campaign to win Ms. Stein’s heart and body—that old Healer in the med ward was looking better and better.
The Academy was supposed to be keeping me sane, not driving me in the other direction.
“You’re right. He wasn’t going to stop,” agreed Nikolai. “Sixteen fractures, and the Crow kept fighting. Why do you think that is?”
“Because he’s a psycho zombie just pretending to be alive?” suggested Santiago.
“Could be, El Bosque,” agreed Nikolai. “Maybe the dampeners don’t work on his kind. Thing is… desperate, unwavering defiance is the sort of shit you’ll be facing when you graduate, and not just from Crows. When it’s life and death, some people choose not to roll over just because they’re facing a Cape. And quitting sure as hell isn’t an option then. So what should Mr. Strich have done?”
“Decapitate the fucker.” Alan’s word count had now reached five, and I was liking him less with every syllable.
“Surprisingly ineffective against Walkers,” countered Nikolai, using the popular term for zombies, “and a quick pass to a lifetime stay in the Hole if it happens in my class, but not a bad suggestion otherwise. Anyone else?”
Shane raised his hand. “He could’ve choked him out, maybe?”
“Like Phoenix did to you, you mean?” Nikolai’s grin widened as he looked from the little ginger to the even smaller Ishmae seated next to him. “After your little dirt nap, I guess it’s no surprise that you’d think of it… but sure, that could work. No oxygen to the brain means no motor control means the opponent goes down. Unless he really is a Walker, of course. Anything else?”
The class gave a collective shrug, so Nikolai nodded and kept going. “Sometimes, killing is the best solution. Other times, you’ll need to be use nonlethal means. Chokes. Immobilizations. Even the old stand-by of handcuffs and shackles.”
“Sounds like some of my dates,” laughed Caleb.
“Sounds like we have a volunteer when we get to those classes,” responded Nikolai cheerfully. That humor vanished as he addressed us as a whole. “We don’t hold these matches because I want to watch you bleed. Not even that mouthy Jitterbug over there. And I didn’t call anyone out today to humiliate them.” He dropped a massive hand onto Matthew’s shoulder. “Fact is, Paladin ran into a situation he wasn’t prepared for. That’s what happens in this class. That’s what this class is about. We fight and then, win or lose, we review what happened. We identify what went wrong, and we train to do better in the future.”
“But all the fight experience in the world is useless if you lack the strength, the speed, or—” and here he looked directly at the Viking again, “—the endurance to capitalize on it. So now that I’ve gotten the measure of your class, we’ll be tabling combat for a little while.”
In front of me, Olympia not only perked up, she actually started glowing again.
“Instead, we’re going to focus on conditioning. In a month or two, you’ll be begging to hit someone and if you’ve trained hard enough, I may even let you. In the meantime, get ready for some real pain. We’ll start with something simple before we get into strength training. A pleasant jog, for example.” That sadistic smile reappeared. “I’m thinking five miles?”
Olympia’s glow went right back out.
•—•—•
There’s a special place in hell for people who schedule classes on Friday afternoon, when all anyone wants is an early end to the school week and a merciful start to the weekend. And at the center of that special place, deep within its disgusting, blood-soaked, shivering heart, there’s an even more special place, reserved for people who schedule Ethics classes on Friday afternoons.
Not everyone minded, of course, because Isabel Ferra was young, pretty, and had a way of chewing on her pencil as she waited for answers that was borderline phallic. People like Paladin, Ishmae, and Winter even seemed to enjoy the discussion topics,
