The Return of Mevolent

Chapter 4: Training

Raven

I loved my new outfit.

Val calls me picky, because I always choose a different outfit every time, but who cares? Life is about being unique and making choices. I'm not like Skul-dude, who wears a suit and a hat everyday, or Valkyrie, who just wears all black. I'm not even like Tanith, who wears nothing but a waistcoat, give or take brown leather! I'm me, Raven Moonglass, apprentice to Valkyrie Cain, great-neice of the evil Mevolent.

My new outfit looked like this. Classic black tight pants, and orange shirt and a red jacket, with a pair of gold boots to sum up the look. Not too bad right? Sparrow looked quite nice too, and she filled in her 'Alexandria Sparrow' look. Black thigh boots, deep blue pants, dark blue shirt and a pale green jacket. She even had a deep blue coat to go with it, and Tanith had bought her a set of swords, explaining that 'she looked like someone who could kill with a sword.' According to Tanith, the swords, which were thin, with a black grip, had an emerald embedded in it. Apparently the emeralds had been enchanted, and they made the sword more deadly than others. I don't know if it's true, but who cares right?

I couldn't wait to show of to Vi. Oh wait, she's called Lexi now. Alexandria. Still used to calling her Sparrow. Never mind. A kick caught me off balance, and Tanith gave me a wicked grin. Sparrow was grinning as well, and I realised that it was her that gave me the kick. "Wake up, Raven!" Sparrow called.

"You want a practise duel, huh? I'll give you one then." I retorted.

"Sure. Why not? Bring it on, girl!" she cat-called.

Sparrow was getting her cockiness back. I decided to stop that. Cracking my knuckles, I stepped onto the mat and started to get my fists up. She had started to circle me, and she was watching me really carefully. Read what others are doing before you strike, Valkyrie had once said. She was obviously doing that, so I had to catch her off guard. I punched at her face, but she quickly dodged and struck a jab under my ribs that sucked my breath out. 

Not willing to give up against my newbie friend, I kept the pain to myself and struck again. She dodged my swipe once again and very soon had sent a punch to my right arm. I replied with a right hook, but it was stopped as Sparrow put her palm up and caught it, shoving my arm back at me and in the mean time straddling on to me. She squashed me on to the mat and it took all of my will power not to squeal. I flipped her over and was about to send a jab to her back when she jerked away and sent a kick flying into my stomach. I flew across the mat and lay there, wheezing.

"Wow, Dria, never knew you could play dirty!" Tanith said as she threw me a packet of leaves. Alexandria grinned.

"I do what I need to. Would be a shame to get blood over this pretty outfit. And if you're a nicknamer, I seriously do not want you to call me Dria. Call me Lexi if you have to. Or Sparrow."

I propped myself against the wall and managed a laugh. "Seriously Sparrow? Since when did you have muscles? I thought you were always the perfect nerd." Suddenly, it hit me. The Violet I knew had always wanted to get home before 6 when we went out together, and her pale face was always red when we went to classes in the morning. She must have trained in the morning and gotten all her studies done in the evening.

"I can see you're working it out yourself, so I won't answer you." Sparrow said. "Yes, I am a nerd, but I can still manage 50 push-ups before and after I go to bed and wake up, and a morning run of 3km isn't that much when you're used to it."

I knew in an instant that Tanith had took a liking to my friend. "A girl with a workout plan. Soon you'll be stronger than Raven over here, seeing you overpowered her so quickly. With no hard thoughts, Moonglass, I'm a bit ashamed of you. Lexi here learns so fast and her reflexes are so much quicker than yours that while you have trained for about 6 months with me, she overpowered you with about 1 hour of training. I know it was a bit more intense than you think but, meh, it payed off. You want some sword play next, girls?"

After that episode, we started to practice with weapons. I actually preferred a gun, but Tanith drilled me over staying open to other choices so when she teachers me swordplay, I use a short sword. To be honest, hidden knives were my forte, since I like the element of surprise, but with Miss Low you don't really have a choice. She was in love with her sword anyways.

I wasn't surprised that Sparrow managed to overpower me once again, as she flicked my sword across the room and held one of hers against my neck. She actually looked a bit like sparrow, with her twin blades flashing. Damn, why was she so good?

After one of the most tiring sessions of my life, Fletcher and Valkyrie came to pick us up. Me and Sparrow had to stay over at Tanith's, since Skulduggery was testing if all reflections would evolve. We shared a bedroom, and I am allowed to say that her house was even more messier than mine. That was something very messy. Never really expected that for her.

I'm looking forward for tomorrow though. Valkyrie and Skulduggery was going to train us in magic, and I can't wait to practice. I've been dying to start training again, because seriously, magic training is so much more cool than physical training. I could walk on walls like Tanith, manipulate shadows (much to Skulduggery's disgust) like Valkyrie used to, but maybe not that good, read the air, move things around using the wind and summon a small flame, like a sucky version of Skulduggery. 

And I wonder what Alexandria Sparrow was going to be able to do.