The Fallen

Episode 5

"When do you think we'll actually start doing hands on work?" Emmet complained as the group took their seats. 

"What's wrong? Tired of Dana taking notes for you?" Kenzie rolled her eyes at him. 

"Yeah. I just want some action already" he sighed and slumped in his seat. 

"Speaking of...where is the professor anyway?" Dana wondered. 

"Good question" Kenzie stood up just to stretch out her body a little. 

The past couple nights she hasn't been sleeping so well. Every single night she has the same dream about being lost in darkness...and it just doesn't sit right with her....

"No sleep again last night?" Ash assumed. 

She went to reply to him but she noticed something change in his face as he looked around her and when she turned to see what he was eyeing at he quickly jumped out of his seat and onto the table, in front of Kenzie, causing her to fall back into her chair, rolling back against the wall. She looked up at Ash who was still standing on the table, in defensive mode. She watched his fist flame up and he seemed to deflect something she didn't see right away. She noticed everyone's attention was now on the wall to the far left and when she looked over, she saw a throwing knife sticking out and she immediately thought about their ninja friend from the other night. But then she saw Professor Sloan come out of the shadows. 

"Defense while on offense. That will only be a part of what you will learn from my teachings. What Ash displayed just now was full defense, only thinking about protecting his Partner. But that would've left both of them open from behind. A Partnership goes two ways..." Ash slowly sat back down, suddenly embarrassed and even more pissed at the sketchy professor. 

"When you all graduate from here you will have found the Partner who meets your every need and who will match your spiritual essence. You will sign a contract...kind of like a marriage document...saying you two will fight for each other, protect each other and stand by each other through the toughest of times for the rest of eternity until one of you die...." 

"I'm sorry, Professor. I don't quite understand..." Kendra voiced. 

"Of course you don't, Kendra. You're too self involved to even keep a single partner for more than a week" he cracked, earning a few laughs from the rest of the class.

"The past couple days you have all been taking classes...taking notes...on self defense, new magic spells, how to use your essence to it's fullest ability, yadda, yadda, this and that...Kenzie" he called out his niece. 

She jumped at the sound of his stern voice. "Can you explain to your friend what you think you will get out of your new classes, specifically this one, aside from just getting hand cramps?" he joked, earning some smiles from his students. 

They were all excited to learn more but they were more excited about the physical stuff, rather than the note taking, knowledge absorbing stuff. Kenzie thought about it for a second. "I think...you'll teach us how to defend ourselves more than defending our Partners" Kenzie spoke honestly. "And also how to connect better with them..." 

"That doesn't even make any sense. How can there be a way to do both. It's like you're trying to have us distance ourselves from our Partners instead" Kendra scoffed. 

Kenzie looked at her and thought about that too. "I don't really think there is a way to do both. But I don't think this class will distance us either. It's always been either you or your partner...and one of our duties as Protectors is to also devote ourselves to our Partners because their pain is our pain...and their happiness is our happiness...and without them we're pretty useless and incapable of protecting anything at all...we need Partners to make us stronger, strong enough to fight the Darkness..."