True Colors

Chapter 10: Jack

That same morning, Hell woke me up with a quick shove, then put his finger over his lips when I tried to ask him a question. I nodded, climbing out of my sleeping bag and rubbing my eyes. Once I was up, Hell handed me some clothes. He said "I went buy them from a village nearby, hope they fit you. Its mostly workout clothes, and stuff that won't constrict your movement." I was confused for a second, but then I remembered that today was our first day of training. If that didn't wake me up, the pancakes and coffee that Tyler made for me and Hell sure did the trick. Once we were done, we went to leave. At the last secomd before the door closed behind us, I saw Tyler giving me a worried look, as if wondering how long I would last. To be honest, I wasn't sure about that myself. That Zy guy had freaked me out. He had been brutal with Hell, but it was obvious that he had been holding back. If Hell had a hard time here, what chance would I have? I pushed that to the back of my mind, and focused on where Hell was leading me. We were going to a low metal shack, and the closer we got, the hotter the air was. I looked at Hell, but he wasn't even breaking a sweat. Walking into that building felt like walking into the pits of Hell, and when I told Hell that, he laughed and said "It pretty much is. This is where I spend most of my time, working on custom armor and weapons that Tyler and Jeff give me designs for." When I asked him who Jeff was, he smiled and said "Jeff is another friend. We left him in a town for a little while, because Julie got tired of his shit." I laughed at that, and Hell led the way into the inner room, where a giant roaring furnace was generating a heat unlike I have ever felt. Hell tossed a deep red crystal into the blaze, and the temperature seemed to rise by like thirty degrees. I was just starting to get curious as to why I was in here when Hell answered that question for me. He pulled out the items we had talked about yesterday, and said "Fixing this will require a lot of time and patience." He placed them on his work table, and grabbed a pair of intricately decorated knives. He held them out to me, and warned me not to touch the edge, since he had made these particular knives to keep an edge, and any material they cut would never be fixable. He told me "Julie is going to teach you how to use knives in hand-to-hand combat, as well as to use them as throwing knives. Both techniques will be required for when you use the Dischargers. Also, until they are complete, you have to eat these. They will help you get attuned to any electric abilities you might have, so that when I'm done you can use the weapon's ability." He handed me a handful of little crystals, like tue red from before, but a deep blue that flashed when the light reflected off of them. I put one in my mouth, and bit into it. It cracked easily, and it seemed to melt away quickly. It was sweet, yet sour, and incredibly addicting. I went to eat another one, and Julie stopped me. I don't know when she got there, but she was there now. She said "If you eat more than one a day, it'll fry your brain. We don't want that, now do we?"I shook my head, and she lead me outside. When the door closed, I heard a loud clash of steel on steel, and the building shook. Hell had begun his work. To my dismay, Julie had me train with her right next to the building. She said that it would keep me aware of my surroundings, and help my muscles loosen. She was definitely right about that, because once we began sparring with our knives, my body seemed to soak in the energy from the air. I was already hyperventilating about an hour in, and she was still pressing on as hard as before, driving me back with her knives, going for my head, then my stomach, then my throat. The best I could do was block each blow, but every time I did, she bounced back, as if in pain, and looked at me with surprise in her eyes. After about another thirty minutes, Julie called for a break. Once she did, I felt the energy from before leak out of me and go back to the air. When I lifted my hand, for a second I thought I could see sparks flying off of my skin. I blinked, and they disappeared. I convinced myself that I had been seeing things. There was no way that that crystal could have actual worked, right? I went with Julie back into the forge, and when she opened the door, Hell lowered a hammer that looked like it could smash me into a flapJack. He said "Like we expected, the pieces are resisting. Its going to take maybe a week to finish this. Tell Tyler to hold all the new forge orders until then." Julie nodded, then kissed him on the cheek and ran off to tell Tyler. He turned to me, and smiled. He said "Well, you look like you had fun. How about you and I go bug Tyler for some quick lunch?" I smiled with him, and we left the forge, the fire still burning brightly.