Halo Squad

Chapter 14

The next month consisted of the same routine everyday, 6 days a week, with them only stopping on sundays. They would wake up at 0700, eat breakfast at 0730, then start training at 0800. From 0800 til 1000 was HIIT training, which consisted of six 15 minute sessions, with 5 minute breaks after each session. From 1000 til 1200 was muscle building, where they would go to the gym and build their body muscle. 1200 til 1300 was lunch time, then they would move on to combat training, which went from 1300 til 1500. During this time, Michael would train Japeth in archery, Anna in throwing weapons, and Emilia, who joined them afterwards, in marksmanship. Gabriel would train Gemma in nunchaku combat and Baby in stealthy knife fighting, which was the closest he was able to get to assassin's knife combat. Remiel continued Gava's boxing training, and also trained Tamsin and Lavinia, however much they protested that they didn't want to. They still hadn't chosen a weapon to fight with, and Remiel had decided it was the only solution. 1500 til 1700 was gymnastics and tumbling training with Uriel, who was still annoyed that he could not train them in flying. From 1700 onwards was free time for the angels.

Dominic's schedule, however, was slightly different to the others. 0800 til 1200 was one on one sword training with Gabriel, he had lunch with the others, but 1300 til 1500 was a very different story for him. He spent this time in the secret library, learning more blessings and working on his wings design. This, however, only happened during the first week. Tamsin, who had neglected to pick a weapon, had mentioned that she'd prefer to fight with magic than a physical weapon, and Dominic had entered the 'Bending' section. He spent the second week researching what exactly elemental bending was and how it worked. He proceeded to teach this to Tamsin, who took to it like a natural and quickly advanced her skills to beyond what Dominic had been able to learn from the books. Tamsin, however, was clearly just relieved to be able to stop doing boxing. Dominic still spent 1500 til 1700 doing gymnastics and tumbling with the others.

Of course, there was one unresolved issue. Lavinia and her weapon. She didn't enjoy boxing and she wasn't as able as Tamsin at element bending. So Dominic decided to teach her the one thing he knew he could. He taught her sword fighting. He trained her in single rapier fighting style, quickly figuring out that it was the technique she was best suited to. This continued over the next two weeks. However, once this first month in heaven was ending, something happened. It was during combat training when it came. Gava was in the boxing ring with Remiel, Dominic was sparring with Lavinia, Tamsin was working on her airbending, Baby and Gemma were practicing on pells, under the supervision of Gabriel, Anna was practicing throwing shurikens directly into the arrows Japeth shot into the bullseyes of targets, while Emilia practiced shooting her shurikens out of the air with an assault rifle. All of a sudden, a massive explosion was heard coming from the domestic sector. Instinctively, everyone stopped what they were doing and moved towards the source of the sound, weapons in hand.

Dominic snapped his fingers, summoning his katanas and Lavinia's rapier. "What the hell is that?" asked Lavinia, voicing everyone's thoughts. "I have no idea, we're about to find out though" Dominic told her. They moved out of the training sector, into the central courtyard, and joined the rest of their team. They then all walked through the doors into the domestic sector. "I think it came from Recreation, the explosion, let's go down there" said Japeth. They went down the corridor, passing the game room, and walking through the door to the cinema room. They were greeted by a giant growling wolf, the size of the doves that had carried them to the centre. The wolf had red eyes and it's black fur was on fire, but it didn't seem bothered. "What the actual hell?!" Gemma turned to Gabriel, who seemed to be petrified in fear. Remiel spoke quietly and slowly "Everyone, back away slowly, but don't turn your back on it". Japeth didn't move away, with the others. He turned around and said "Wait a second. I know what this is, it's a hellhou-", he was cut off as the creature swiped a paw at him, sending him flying at the cinema's screen, which was promptly smashed.

"This is a bloody hellhound?! What the hell is it doing here?" Dominic screamed at Gabriel, who was still frozen "Wake up, idiot!". "Let us deal with this," said Remiel, with Michael at his side "get out of here". Tamsin had other ideas though "No. We all fight together. That's what we've been training for. Plus, for some reason we've all become really skilled within the space of a month. Everyone go!". The nine of them arranged themselves, with Anna, Japeth and Emilia at the back, Tamsin, Gava and Gemma in the middle, and Dominic, Baby and Lavinia at the front. "First row, engage!" shouted Dominic, and his row all charged at the hellhound. Baby was smacked aside, but Lavinia managed to fight off the paw that came for her afterwards with her sword. Lavinia looked for Dominic to assist her, but he had disappeared. "Dominic's gone somewhere, Gemma come help me" she called back, and Gemma came up to her with her nunchaku swinging. The hellhound reared it's head back for a second, then spat a massive fireball at the trio of angels currently hitting it with bullets, arrows and shuriken. Gava dived out of the way, then looked up to see that the fireball had stopped in mid air. Tamsin stood there, bending the air around the fireball, her face giving away the strain she was putting into holding it in place. She was in a similar position to the one used for a Kamehameha wave, Gava thought. He realised that he spent too much time around Japeth, who loved anime.

Japeth also noticed the similarity between her stance and the Kamehameha position, but also realised that her left leg was in front of her right leg. Beads of sweat started rolling down her forehead as she pushed it back at the hellhound with as much force as she could. Unfortunately, all the fireball did was make the hellhound angrier. Japeth was getting frustrated, however, because he was shooting with wooden arrows that all burnt up when they hit the fire surrounding the hellhound, meaning none of them actually hit it. Emilia, however, was having more success than him. While her bullets did not kill the hellhound, they seemed to hurt it considerably. She thought for a second, then aimed her rifle at it's knees, gradually crippling it enough to stop it hitting them. Anna was throwing shuriken after shuriken, but was annoyed that they didn't seem to really hurt the hellhound. Determined to be useful, she brought out two throwing knives from the satchel on her waist. She proceeded to charge at the hellhound. Joining Baby, who had gotten up, in slashing the hellhound's sides.

Tamsin wished she could bend some water to fight the hellhound's fire, but there wasn't any water nearby, and she was too busy stopping it's fireballs. As she threw another fireball back in it's face, she saw a white figure moving up it's back. "Guys, look!" she called to the others, then gestured towards the hellhound's back "Go for it's face, distract it". Everyone then re-directed their attacks towards the hellhound's face, causing it to get even angrier and growl so loud all other sounds were drowned out, even Emilia's assault rifle. Then suddenly, the hellhound went silent. There was a loud thud as it's head dropped to the ground. The hellhound's body followed. They looked upon it, to see Dominic, straddling the hellhound's back. He was staring at the head, breathing heavily, a sword in each hand covered in black blood. As the hellhound's body disintegrated, and Dominic fell to the ground, they realised that he was wearing the field uniform, instead of the training kit. He looked up with a smile and gave them a wink.