The World Flying Force Rebellion in the Shadows

Chapter Thirteen- History Exposed

I had tried again to recover my burla from Tesser the next day, but she wasn't in the lab and neither was Tomma. She also wasn't answering my comm. Running a rebellion was probably pretty time consuming, but still, I missed my burla. Maybe it was silly, but I had pictured her somewhere snuggling my pet. It was possible she was eating breakfast in her room cozy and curled up with my burla. The lumpy oatmeal was eaten begrudgingly. Notawa found me before the first bite had reached my stomach. She was with Krit'ts which only added to my grumpiness.

"Good morning," I said with a grumble to Notawa and gave a curt nod to Krit'ts.

"Good morning! I was just welcoming Krit'ts back," Notawa was in a great mood even if her puffy eyes showed how little sleep she had gotten. After what Krit'ts had said last night, I was almost certain she was being manipulated like I was.

"I thought he could join us in our studying..." I didn't say anything.

"...and sparring..." she continued, "...and mealtimes."

"Sure, I guess relaxing and downtown is for other people," my response coaxed a rare smile from Krit'ts, but the sarcasm was lost on Notawa.

"Ok perfect! After dinner you guys can do two hours then, see you in training!" She bounded off like a peppy animal. She left before I even got the opportunity to ask about her weekend. Krit'ts walked with me to our first training class. The silence was our only conversation topic. Without coffee or a good night's sleep, I wasn't even going to try with him.

If there was anything to give Master Guardian credit for, it's knowing how to irk me. My frustrations and worry made training very intense. I knocked Krit'ts down then he would knock me down. Then I would knock him down even harder. This lasted until we were both so exhausted. Krit'ts was somewhat stronger than I was, but I was quicker and more flexible. This made us fairly matched in our sparring sessions. After all, the computers paired us for that reason. More than that, it matched us for our personalities. Apparently, our personalities were very compatible for combat training. To me, this meant our stubbornness and intensity were either very similar or very different. Conflict in training had to be advantageous, I was pushing myself harder with Krit'ts than I ever did with Zarlique. Zarlique seemed to take it easy on me, He could have dominated me in training, being almost twice my size and much stronger. But he had been more gentle and it was hard to try and overpower someone who didn't really want to hurt me.

Arwago and Tesser hadn't gotten in touch with me since our meeting in the blue room. There wasn't much time to do anything between training and my classes. Every chance I got, the comm sheet had my attention. During breaks, or while waiting in lines, I was addicted to the stories. That was why I hadn't heard Arwago shout that the break was over until he was in my face.

"Ta'law! On your feet!" he shouted at me. Instantly, I closed out the comm sheet and jumped to my feet. Krit'ts was already waiting for me.

We had already been through enough routines of sparring that we knew how they would go. But something on his face told me that this one would have more intensity. Now was the time, Krit'ts was going to pay me back for the broken nose. We had about a dozen series of strikes and wrestling combinations that we could choose to try. The goal was to dominate the opponent until they gave up or passed out. Each of those series of combinations had counter moves but it was more difficult to think of the counter strikes than it was to just lash out. Unfortunately for me, Krit'ts struck first. He went straight for my nose, just like I thought, but I avoided that hit. The very tip of his fist had grazed my cheek. My fingers clawed at his upper arm. It was slick with sweat and impossible to get a good grip. My hand slipped off his body. Krit'ts took that opportunity to try to hit me again, this time going for my throat. His fist to connected with my shoulder as I tried turned to avoid it. The entire weight of my body shoved him back through my shoulder. His balance was too good, and he pushed back. We both jumped apart, for just a second. I jabbed quickly at his face with my right fist and connected with his forearm as he blocked it. He tried a double jab. Working with him this long, I knew that he always followed with a cross after a double jab. I was ready for it, his arm was pulled under my shoulder and tried to pull it tight, trapping him in an arm hold. His exasperated grunt told me he was getting as exhausted as I was, but still, he pushed with his whole body to force the match to the ground. His mistake was control. He over-shot and ended up unbalanced on the ground. At this point everything became jumbled. He was pulling and shoving as I was pushing and trying to get any sort of advantage. Usually, I was the better ground wrestler. Finally, the opportunity came, I rolled to my side and grabbed his arm again. His one arm was in between my legs. I took hold and didn't let go. They were pushing off his body to gain more leverage, arching my back to stretch his arm further than it was supposed to go.