Into The Tainted Waters

Training Day

I wake up in this comfy bed after having no dreams. I get up and start my morning routine of brushing my teeth and hair and heading to the kitchen to eat. I decide on steak and eggs eating a large plateful. I then head to the training room and see my friends getting taught by Caoimhe. They all seem to already get the hang of it. I see Nate dodging and rolling like a ninja. Charlyse firing with deadly accuracy. Taylor busting a load of bullets faster than i've ever seen with a handgun. Viktoria running in fast with her Katana.

I see Caoimhe dodging the bullets Matrix style and blocking the katana strike with what looks like a shield coming out of her arm made of......rubber. She kicks back Viktoria and shoots two blobs of liquid rubber at Charlyse and Taylor instantly drying on their faces blocking them from seeing. I see Nate sneaking up from behind going in to strike. Caoimhe just swings around with her leg kicking out the dagger, then knocking out Nate with a backwards kick. Viktoria gets up and trips Caoimhe, who just proceeds to bounce off the floor like a ball. Caoimhe then kicks Viktoria square in the chest, knocking her on the ground.

"Getting better guys, you'd be able to take out the average Sentinel if you work together" she says "Too bad i'm not average". "How are they so good so fast" i ask. "Hey Jack, and this room has been specifically enchanted to speed up learning and skill development" she says. "Spending an hour in here is like a day's worth of training". "Interesting, do i get a turn here" i ask. "Step up big boy" she says. I walk onto the mat and my friends walk off, watching us. "Don't hold back on me" she says. "Don't worry, i won't" i say getting into position.

I raise my hands and blast a gout of fire at her, making her raise her rubber shield. I press on with more heat melting the shield. She dodges out of the way before the fire hits her and shoots a beam of fiery light at me. I raise a stone wall before it hits blocking the beam. She adds another beam and it starts to break through forcing me to raise another wall. "Wow, tough defense" she says stopping her attack. All of a sudden she speeds faster than a bullet and comes up behind me, striking down at my head with a kick. I react as fast i can, trying out something new.

I turn my skin into steel, protecting me from the blow. "Clang" went Caoimhe's foot against my head. "Ow, where the hell did that come from" she asks. "I just imagined it and it happened" i say turning around. I outstretch my hand pointing at her feet, engulfing them in stone from the ground. I smile and say "Checkmate". "Thor" she says. "Huh" i say turning around to look at Thor receiving a hard blow to my face, sending me back 10 feet onto my ass.

"Holy shit" i say standing up, rubbing my face. "You should face a real warrior then" He says standing proud. "Ok bitch, let's do this" i say charging a flame in my hand. I fire the gout at him as he meets it with a stream of lightning. Both of our attacks hold against each other as we release. "Hmph" Thor says "Can't do any better boy". I then pull a stone pillar behind him, throwing him into the air where i hit him with a stone pillar from the ceiling, making him crash to the ground.

"Hows that old man" i say chuckling. He shoots a stream of lightning, hitting me and forcing me to the ground as i feel it tearing into my skin. About 3 seconds into however, i start absorbing it, healing my singed skin. I then put my hands where the lightning is hitting me and make my own stream fighting it to the midpoint between us. "You think you can match me with my own sphere of control boy!" he yells pressing into his attack more. I hold my attack with one hand, absorbing the electricity in the lights above us, powering my lightning further.

I begin to beat Thor with this, then he ends up rolling one way to avoid getting hit by my attack. It hits the floor instead, carving 5 feet into it. "How did you....." he says looking at the floor. "Caoimhe, can i talk to you for a sec" he says walking over to her as she gets out of the stone. "I haven't seen lightning that powerful since Arkyn, Caoimhe, could this be...." he says in a hushed tone. "You don't think......" she says back in a hushed tone. "I do think, if that's so we have to train him before we take him to the council" Thor says.

"Hey, i'm right here ya know" i say to them. "Oh hey, how you doin" Caoimhe says with a large grin. "Who's Arkyn" i ask. "Bacchus is probably more certified to talk about him" She says signalling Bacchus to come forward. Bacchus walks over with a dull face. "Arkyn Hakon, one of the most powerful Sentinels that ever lived." Bacchus says "But, he was a human at first".

"To understand Arkyn, you have to understand his history, he was born in sweden during the 1200s, he started to practice magic at the age of 10. Magic is just Sentinel sphere of controls, so he started using Sentinel powers at 10. Most adults that use Sentinel powers go insane after a year, but Arkyn experimented with basically everything, he ended up becoming so powerful that the council decided to kill him. But the Old Man told them to spare him and instead he would go to meet him. You see, Arkyn was using this power for good purposes, feeding the hungry, curing the sick, building homes for the homeless. Well, as a human, Arkyn was already powerful enough to match a council member. And the Old Man went down there and turned him into a full Sentinel, the first and only time that has ever happened. Once he became a Sentinel, his power increased exponentially, he still used it for good however. Until about the 1940s, he saw the horrors of the world wars and wanted to gain the power to take over the world and force it into peace" Bacchus explained.

"So he wanted world peace" i ask. "Yes, but he wanted to rob everyone of their free will" Bacchus says. "After the world wars he started doing the truly despicable acts, he was killing countless Sentinels and trapping their souls, creating an enormous crystal that he was going to absorb to achieve ultimate power that likely would have rivaled the entire council" Bacchus says "The council caught on to this and sent 10 strike teams to take him down, along with 5 council members. Thor, Caoimhe, and I were on the same strike team. There were 100 Sentinels there, only 14 survived. We were able to destroy the crystal and eventually defeated him, but he got away, weakened."

"Wait, you're saying those shards were ....." i say. "Yes, it was Arkyn that made them" he says. "How many people died in that explosion" i ask. "Don't worry about that" he says. "How. Many. Died." i ask roughly. Bacchus sighed "6894". "So 6894 people died.......to give me powers" i say sadly. "That wasn't your fault" Caoimhe says putting her hand on my shoulder. "I'm a murderer" i say blankly. "You aren't a murderer dumbass, Arkyn is, he's the one who made those shards" Nate says "By also murdering". I look up at the ceiling and notice it shaking slightly. "Guys, do you see that" i say running to the kitchen to find Gordon Ramsay using bombs to cook with. "Wow, you got me all worried for nothing" i say annoyed.