A Date With Danger

Making Preparations to Die

October 14, 2008  10:00 am
Akko Academy, Malison
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▫️Stella:

I'm just going to put an "out of order" sticker on my head and call it a day.

I hit my sword against my brother's as we sparred together. We have been sparring for three days, with almost no breaks other than to eat and go to the bathroom. We can't afford any breaks. Luke Zodiac, the leader of our planet, has told us that in one week our unit will be at war with Seven.... the greatest villain in all existence. Well, those weren't his exact words... nor did he tell us, he sort of just sent us a text message saying, "You cannot withstand the storm. Seven is the storm." 

Because that makes 'so much' sense... after hours of deciphering with my twin brother, Aron, we finally understood that we were about to be dispatched to war, so we started preparing right away.

I am excited and scared at the same time. I finally get to use my knowledge of fighting in the real fields. I also get to protect my planet, my people, my home. But, I am deeply terrified, most Zodiac Rangers don't come back from war. I am mostly worried about my brother Aron, who has a 110% chance of dying within the first five minutes. That's why I am sparing with Aron, and have been since I figured out the message.

"Your leg is sticking out. If I wasn't a gentleman, I would slice it off," Aron says to me as we continue to spar. He is very useful in pointing out my own mistakes, but could see no fault in his own.

"Thanks." I laugh and change my footing. "You might have just saved me a foot."

He chuckles and reveals to me a smirk on his lip, showing he is about to play dirty. He is terrible at lying.

Those in the Zodiac family train us to become warriors for their war at a special school called Akko Academy. They call us Zodiac Rangers. Each of us has been trained by a particular Zodiac family member; we represent them. We go where they are needed when they can not go and we hold up their name with pride. My brother was trained by Larkin, I was trained by Ames. We have both finished with our training and as the final step to becoming like them, Mike Zodiac knocked us out and mess with our genes to give us power.... like them.

Aron finally hits me with his power, giving me more of a challenge, he quickly flicks his hand and a wall of fire goes between us, making me step back before getting burned.

"So?" I give him a playful look, "we are playing that way now?" I run my thumb across each of my four fingers on my right hand as I feel my own power inside me, itching to get out. I pause only for a second before launching my hand at him, sending a bolt of electricity faster than light. My brother of course saw that coming and was able to quickly jump out of the way before he became roadkill.

"Stella!" Aron yells, "that was close."

"Yeah brother of mine, you are getting rusty," I laughed as I grab a bow staff, positioning it just right to help me over the firewall without getting burned. "You need to improve your skill or else you are going to be watching the battle from heaven instead of by my side."

I may fear for this war, but I fear for Aron more. He is so kind and compassionate. If he did happen to bump into someone, he would apologize a million times and then go cry himself to sleep. Not to mention, Seven is a master of unique weapons, like the bow and arrow and whip blade. These weapons take decades, even centuries sometimes, to master. Aron and I have been training for less than a year, and Aron is not prepared to fight in this war. He is unfit, he will never survive and I can't always be around to protect him. He is the only real brother I have, he is all I got.

"Yeah, yeah!" Aron snaps at me and holds out his hand.

I helped him up, "I am being serious brother."

"You are always so serious, like in elementary school, we wanted to be writers. Remember our dream?"

"Yes I do," I smile at the happy memory. "We were going to write a book together."

"And?" Aron rested his arm on my head. Even with him being my twin brother, he was still way taller than I was.

"And I couldn't come up with anything fun to write about, and just wanted to write essays on Philosophy," I laugh as I push his arm off my brown hair. I feel my heart weigh down in sadness as that dream has become farther and farther from reality. Now our future only holds war.

Aron smiles down at me, "What? You don't want to be my armrest, dear sister?"

"No, I do not!" I snap. "You are going to ruin my hair, I have a date tonight."

"No, you don't," Aron replies back.

Drat! He knows me too well.

"How do you know?" I put my hands on my hips and sass back to him.

"Because nobody wants to date you," he said the harsh truth. "Which is a pitty because everyone wants to date me, and we are twins!"

"Not identical," I sigh and look at my brother, with sandy blond hair, tan skin, and blue eyes. He was the opposite to me, with dark brown hair, fair skin, and purple eyes.

"Doesn't matter," Aron tried to comfort me as he grabbed the fire extinguisher and put our his firewall. "Because every guy in the galaxy doesn't know what he is missing."

"If you say so," I smile at that comment. My brother is too nice. He is so going to get crushed on the battlefield.

If all those things they say about Seven are true, then we are never going to defeat him in the battle, much less win the war.

I have never seen Seven, but I hear he drinks the blood of those he kills straight from their skulls. Most bodies are brought back in pieces or are missing random things like just their teeth or middle fingers. Sometimes Seven sends the parts of the dead warriors to the Zodiac Mansion or Akko Academy. One time, we found boxes of teeth necklaces in front of our school, addressed to us, to show just how many Seven is capable of killing to try and intimidate us to not fight. He is one tricky person, I need to prepare my brother... he can't wander into Seven's trap.

I hold the sword to my brother's chest. "Never let your guard down," I state to him, he holds his hands up in surrender. I win this round.

It's a great honor that I get to fight for Malison. Even though I know both me and my brother will die to do that very deed. Dying for our planet... it's strange how well that fits in with the Malison motto, which is everything we stand for as citizens. "Live or die, always succeed."

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