Four thirty-three

Chapter 28

"We're gonna do something fun today."

Brett stood at the door of the classroom, an eyebrow raised, a playful smirk in his mouth.

Eddy snorted. "Not like that, you horny little shit, we're on school hours. Come with me."

Brett followed Eddy down many, many flights of stairs, their violin cases strapped at their backs. They went down, past the library and the clinic, and even lower than the luthier's workshops. Eddy could tell by Brett's deepening frown that his legs were starting to hurt, and he laughed to himself.

"Are you taking me to hell or something?"

Eddy huffed. "Funny, I spend so much time with you these days, you had me convinced we were already there."

He felt more than saw the boy roll his eyes, and sniggered.

♪ ♪ ♪

The arena was huge, bigger than any stadium Brett had ever seen.

Not that he'd seen that many, mind you. But, well.

The ceiling was so high up, you could have almost mistaken it for the sky, and Brett had to do a double take before he remembered they were several kilometres underground.

"Wow." He muttered, breathless, and Eddy chuckled.

"Yeah. I thought so too, the first time I saw it."

There was a group of people in the far corner, all sitting in a circle. They looked younger than Brett, and they were all listening to what appeared to be their instructor, who was standing at the centre of the formation. Closer by, two girls were playing small lyres, making vines grow out of thin air and twisting them around.

"Don't get fooled by the nice flowers," Eddy whispered in Brett's ear, and felt a little rush of playful satisfaction when he saw the boy shudder minutely. "Those could choke you in less than a minute. And not in the funny way."

Brett let out a nervous laugh and followed his teacher to the opposite corner of the arena, far enough from the other musicians so that they wouldn't bother them. There were a few dummies that looked like they'd gone through hell and back, all burnt and broken. They were standing on rails, probably so they could become moving targets should the need arise, Brett surmised.

"Okay, get your violin out and tune quickly, We're going to do some fighting practice today."

He saw the boy's eyes widen with fear. "We... what?"

"Fighting practice, Yang, do I have to repeat everything twice? Come on!"

He ignored Brett's gaping face in favour of getting his violin ready. He walked a few steps away and stood facing his student, his body already in a fighting stance.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do. We've been practising how to summon our elements from nothing and how to make them move and shift using music. Now we're gonna take it one step further, and try to move the different forms the elements take while aiming them at a target." He pointed at the dummies. "Your goal is to strike one of those. Don't worry, they're sturdier than they look, you won't burn them. Come on."

He placed himself in front of the targets, showing Brett how to take a fighting stance.

"Okay. Now I want you to create a simple ball of fire." At Brett's sceptical look, he smiled. "Come on, you can do that alright."

He heard Brett mutter something like yeah, I know before the boy started playing. A ball of fire materialised before him, small but bright and full.