“Not yet.” Vibe and Silt had convinced me that Baron Boner was a non-starter, but I wasn’t sold on either of the two nicknames Sofia had suggested.
“Figure one out before second-year, or one of the image consultants will choose for you.” The big man gave a mock shiver. “Not something you want, believe me. Anyway, let’s see how you fare today against our resident Titan.”
“I’m going to break you like a twig, Crow,” said Erik, as we headed down the tunnel to the arena.
“Keep telling yourself that,” I shot back. “All I have to do is dodge for half a minute until your fat ass keels over.”
Turns out, his prediction was a shit-ton more accurate than mine.
•—•—•
I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow of the whole fight. I’m sure there’s a vid of it somewhere in the Academy records, if you’re really curious. Maybe you can find some other Crow and convince her to get that vid and play it for you.
Let’s just say that five months of training had done the Viking’s stamina a world of good. Let’s say that I dodged his first punch easily, then made the mistake of driving my own fist into his ribs, where regular bones—mine—met superhumanly dense bones—his—with predictable results.
Let’s also say that ducking under a follow-up blow, climbing the slab-like wall of your opponent’s back, and choking him out is way harder than it might seem in theory, especially when one of your two hands is already shattered.
As soon as I’d pulled myself onto his back, I realized something else; leaving the ground negated any advantage I’d had in terms of speed and mobility. I was halfway up, my good arm reaching for Erik’s throat, when an enormous hand reached around, peeled me off like I was a wet towel, and swung me right into the wall.
If you want to know more, go find the fucking vid. I still ache just thinking about it.
•—•—•
After Combat came Control… still the only class we had five days a week, even if it had been moved to a new building on campus. More than a month after Shane’s death and Ishmae’s departure, Ms. Stein remained a shadow of her formerly cheerful self. Part of me was glad about that. She’d played a role in what had gone down with Unicorn and Phoenix, just like I had. Neither of us got to just shrug that shit off and pretend it hadn’t happened.
That first Monday, I missed Control, courtesy of another extended stay at the med ward. By the time I peeled myself off the gurney and stole yet another pair of sweats, it was time to head over to Projection.
Fucking Projection.
I’ve told you about Emery, right? Guy with a stick the size of one of those archaic baseball bats wedged up his ass? Only good thing I can say about him was that he made Isabel’s Ethics class almost enjoyable by comparison. I mean… the willowy professor hated me as much as Emery did, and Ethics was one of the dumbest courses in the history of academics, but at least she was halfway decent to look at. A damn sight better than the four-limbed, walking cock known as Emery Goldsmith.
It didn’t help that I had to see him four times a week—twice for Projection and twice for Perception. It also didn’t help that I had no idea what I was doing in either class. At least in Combat, I could throw a punch. But Projection? I wasn’t an Earthshaker. I couldn’t wave my hand and cause a rockslide.
Perception was just as dumb, except that—to the naked eye—the other first-years seemed every bit as useless as I was. More than half the first-years were in Projection, but there were only three of us in Perception. I spent each class kneeling in a circle with Vibe and Freddy—our Switch, now going by Muse—as Emery droned on about opening ourselves to the flow of energy of the world around us. While the other two closed their eyes and tried to open their chakras or whatever the professor was saying, I spent my time focused inward, trying to repeat what I’d managed in the clearing with Sally, digging down for the empty space at my core.
There were a few times in that first month where I thought I almost had it, only to have something intrude; irritation, annoyance, even the occasional cramp in my quads from the stupid kneeling pose Emery insisted we maintain for the entirety of his class. Each time, I found myself back at square one, an entire living world somehow separating me from my power.
Emery Goldstein hated me from the moment we met. After a single day in his classes, that feeling was mutual.
•—•—•
If Mondays and Wednesdays—where I had Combat, Control, and the two P’s—were my worst days, Tuesdays and Thursdays were my best.
Just after breakfast was Weapons Training. Even in a world of Powers, it seemed like the sort of thing that would be useful to every first-year, but there were surprisingly few of us in attendance. The two Stalwarts were a given, of course; the irritation of spending more time with Matthew-fucking-Strich far outweighed by the opportunity to spend that same time with Nadia. My surprise at Tessa’s inclusion ended the first time she used her telekinesis to pick up a half-dozen weapons off the nearby wall. She damn near cut my head off three times in our first minute of sparring. Last in the group were Kayleigh and Evelyn. Neither Vibe nor Wormhole’s powers were offensive in nature, so weapons offered them another way to contribute.
The best part about Weapons Training wasn’t my classmates though. It wasn’t even Jessica Strich, who was surprisingly funny and light-hearted, and would have been devastatingly sexy if she hadn’t reminded me so much of her little brother. The best part about Weapons Training was that it was the one class where I didn’t totally
