The Guardians

Chapter 3: Daggers and Sparring Partner

I walked down the hall in search of Max's workshop and explored the Bunker at the same time. I learned that from the hall with the living quarters, you stumble into a hangout space with the kitchen and med bay attached. Down the other hall was the garage, training spaces and Max's workshop.

When I enter the workshop, I find a forge, an armory and a testing station fit with a gun range. Max and Lara notice me and walk over. "Good you found the place." Max says. "Yep, you wanted me to come by?'' He nods and points over at the armory. "So, as you might already know, we all have a weapon of choice, mine being that beautiful piece of steel against the wall," He motioned to the great sword leaning against the wall by the forge, "Zeph, has his whip, Karina has her bow, so on and so forth. So, anything look good to you." I looked at the wall mounted with everything from a diverse type of firearms to unique blades of all shapes and sizes. My eyes immediately went to a pair of blue and white daggers, I took them off the wall and walked over to the throwing range.

I've always been good with knives, but I think most of that was my powers. I walk up to the painted line on the floor, float the blades in front of me and launch them into the painted outline of a person on the wall. One dagger landed into the outline's leg and the other sank into its shoulder. Max whistles, "Damn, that was impressive, where did you learn that?"

"My father taught me when I was seven."

"Amazing, so I'm guessing you're choosing blades then."

Plucking the daggers from the wall, "you guess correctly."

"If you have a specific design in mind, I could forge them for you. Except for C.J. 's staff and book all of our weapons are specially made by me to help with our powers. Take Lara's pistols for examples." Lara walked over to the wall and pulled a pair of silver and blue pistols off, walking back over she presented them to me. "These help her channel her ability to control lightning through them, forming electric ammunition. In layman's terms she can shoot bolts of lightning through them." Lara walked over to the shooting range with us following closely behind her. She raised the intricate pistol up, aiming at the target, and fired. A bright blue light emanates from her shoulder, down her arm and into the barrel of the weapon. A single bolt of electricity explodes out of the weapon and flies toward the target, destroying it.

"Wow, that's destructive." I said in awe. Blowing the smoke off the barrel, Lara turned to face us.

"And that's just half power."

I need to get her out of my mind. The thought pops into my mind as Zephyr walks in, grabs a morning star whip off the wall and walks out. "Max, you got everything you need."

"Yeah, just send me the specs for the daggers you want, and I'll see what I can do. Oh, and you can keep those." he said, gesturing to the blades in my hand. I slide them into my boot, alongside the knife my dad gave me, and went in search of Zephyr.

I find him in one of the training rooms, sparring with the training droids. I lean in the door frame and stay quiet, so as to not alert him to my presence.

As I watched him, his thoughts flooded my mind. Thoughts about me and my safety along with his. He was focusing on the droid floating in front of him when a droid came up behind him readying a strike. I took a blade from my boot and launched it into the droid, destroying it. The noise got Zephyr's attention and he turned in my direction. "You threw that blade."

"Yep, I specialize in daggers." I said pulling the blade out of the bot. "'And you mister have some loud thoughts."

"Sorry, I've got to work on keeping it quiet in there when you are around. Do you want to spar?"

"Why not," I pulled my other blades from my boot and floated them beside me. "You sure you want to do this."

"Oh yeah, I'm sure."

"Ok, but you asked for it."

He took his whip from around his neck, and with a flick of the wrist made a gust of wind flip my hair into my face. While blinded by my hair, I could hear him laughing and what a laugh it is, what he did not notice was the blade floating behind his head. I moved my hair out of my face and raised my brow. A second later, his hair fell from his topknot. It was my turn to laugh. Before I knew it, I was tackled to the ground breathless.

I looked at his face, his stormy gray eyes, the strand of charcoal black hair in the center of his forehead, my gaze fell to his lips and back to his eyes. The minty scent of his breath wafts over my face. He looks into my eyes, as if trying to memorize every feature of my soul. She is so beautiful, I smiled at him "thank you, you are not so bad yourself."

He smiles and leans in close to my ear, "is there any way to get you out of my mind?"

"Yep, just stop thinking about me."

"That's it, I just have to stop thinking about you."

"Yep, it's easier than trying to block you out."

"What would happen if you blocked me out?"

"Well, with as many thoughts as I'm getting from you, it can mess with my powers and give me some major headaches."

"Well, we wouldn't want that."

"We should get back to sparring," I said, pushing on his chest. He stood up, helping me up in the process. "How about some good old-fashioned sparring, no weapons, and no powers?"

"Ok, deal." he said as he tossed his whip to the side and put his hair back in the topknot. I tie my hair up in a ponytail and float my blades over to where he threw his whip. I took my stance, and we walked around each other.

As we spared, he got behind me and attacked to which I responded by flipping him over my shoulder. Not seeing his grip on my wrist, he took me down with him and got me into a hold. I slipped out of his grasp and put him in a headlock. This went on for a while, he would lunge, I would counter, put each other into complex holds that we would get out of.

Soon I got thoughts into my head, they were Leona's, she had been watching us spar for I would say half an hour now. Hey Leona, what's up. I projected to her to which she replied. Hi, just watching, you're good.

Thanks, give me a minute to put this guy on his ass and then you can show me some stuff if you're up to it.

Sure.

Zephyr had me in a headlock, when he lifted me into the air, I used his momentum against him and flipped him over my shoulder. He landed on the mat with a thud, the wind knocked out of him. He coughed and I stuck out my hand to him, he accepted it and I helped him up. "Wow, that was a great workout, usually the only person who can put me on my ass is Leona."

"Yeah, it was great to spar with someone other than my brother. Also, Leona is here." I said gesturing behind him, as I walked over and picked my knives up.

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