I lay gasping for breath, and barely conscious. The sound of shouting brought me round from my daze.
“I’ve been training under Ogun for almost five years. If you want a beat down, you may certainly have one.”
“You’ve already failed twice to beat me, so forgive me if I’m not concerned. He only woke up an hour ago, and you’re fucking suffocating him. I’ll ask Ogun if that’s how he runs things on his ship.”
“Don’t worry Ember, I’ll be telling him how you attacked a superior officer. It’s not hard to guess who he will listen to.”
“Threaten Shaun’s life like that again and I’ll fucking end you, you stupid bitch,” Ember said coldly, as she crouched down next to me. “Come on, Shaun. I’ll get you to your room.”
“You’re not going anywhere! You have a duty to humanity to learn all that you can. Not to come and go as you please,” Cassia screamed back.
I managed to reply now my head had cleared. “I can’t, and won’t be learning anything more from you. Looks like the therapy wasn’t as effective five years ago, you fucking nutter.” I turned to Ember, whose scowl had turned into a smile with my words. Without saying anything else, we left the classroom.
“That was interesting. I didn’t expect this on your first day at the office, Shaun.”
“Yeah, it was different. Are you going to teach me how to defend myself, like you did?”
“I’ll try. To be honest, it was more reactive than any plan.”
“So, you didn’t find your center? Whatever the fuck that is.”
She smiled, “Not much luck there for me either. Ogun told me it was really about calming yourself so you can be consciously aware of everything inside of you. He also told me it’s different for everyone. That bitch is too stupid to understand everyone is different.”
“How did you manage to boot her?”
“Come on, Shaun. If there’s one thing you know about me. Something that I feel so deeply about. What is it?”
“Ahh!” A eureka moment. “You won’t ever be controlled again. Gotcha! Do you think it was just pure force of will?”
“Yeah, if I had to guess. You couldn’t fight back because you’re a blasé moron.”
“As empowering as always, Ember.”
She laughed as we reached the room I had woke up in, “Here we are.”
“I thought this was a medical room?”
“Nope. It’s your living quarters on the ship. I’m next door.” She followed me in my room, picking another one of the gross pouches off the table. “Here. Get another one of those into you and let’s practice your defending skills. You useless, sack of shit,” she laughed.
I slurped down another pouch and we sat down cross-legged facing each other, eyes closed.
Ember’s presence entered my soul and gently restrained me. “You’re a lot more gentle than the teacher.”
“I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing. I’m guessing based upon what I experienced. Now, try to imagine that I’m an evil Fomorian trying to take over your soul.”
I tried for a minute with no success. “I can’t do this shit, Ember.”
There was no reply.
“Ember?”
No reply, until Ember began screeching in my head, “Shaun! Help me, please! I can’t get back to my own body. I think I’m dying. I don’t understand what I’ve done. Please help me!!” She screamed, terrified.
Panic hit me like a wave. I focused on pushing her presence getting her back safely in her own body. Like magic, she disappeared.
I snapped open my eyes to check on her. She was smiling her head off. “Seems I found your trigger, doesn’t it?”
“You evil, clever fucker,” I started laughing, but quickly stopped when Ogun walked in, looking stern. The teacher was standing behind him.
“Wait out here, Cassia,” he said. The door closed, saving us from her sour expression.
He took a seat on my bed. I was glad. I didn’t want him looming over me when he gave us a bollocking. I glanced briefly at Ember. Concern etched on both our faces.
“So, your first lesson didn’t go very well, Shaun?”
“Not really, no. I don’t find Cassia’s teaching methods are for me.”
“You must still learn. We really are on a time limit. The Fystr will catch up with us eventually. How will you defend yourself against them if you don’t develop even the most basic defense strategies?”
I smiled at him. “I’ve learnt how to reject a presence out of my mind. Ember here has just taught me.”
Ogun raised an eyebrow. “So, you have taught Shaun to defend himself from mind invasion in just under five minutes Ember?”
She nodded in response.
“Impressive, as you only learnt yourself ten minutes ago,” he paused, and we sat there waiting for the hammer to drop. “Even more impressive, Ember, is that you managed to enter Shaun’s mind, and defended him against Cassia as she abused her power.”
“She was suffocating him. He was about a second from blacking out!” Ember half shouted in indignation.
“I rarely enter the minds of people around me. However, we are in a war situation and I need everyone doing everything right. Cassia must have forgotten that you can’t hide anything from me. Unless you somehow become as powerful as I am. When she arrived on the bridge, explaining how untrustworthy, incompetent, and insubordinate you both were. I could see everything that had transpired.”
“So, you knew it wasn’t our fault?”
“Yes. I did. Though, I still have two concerns: The first being how you would continue to learn, but here you are carrying on your lessons with significant success. I will not put you under Cassia’s tutelage again, however you will have to learn directly from me when time permits. That time is limited, but I am confident you can take what I teach and practice together.”
We both nodded in agreement as he continued, “The second thing, is that I need everyone pulling together. I must ask you to forgive Cassia. She is a good person, but this stressful predicament has affected us all. We are a small
