The Purple Haired Craze

In Which Valkyrie And Kenspeckle Meet

They walked through the doors of the medical room and Valkyrie almost dropped Skulduggery onto one of the empty beds.

"Hey, careful!" he said, sounding a bit miffed. "I am not a thing!"

But before Valkyrie could say sorry, Kenspeckle Grouse had rounded the corner. "Mr Pleasant, what have you done to yourself."

"Miss Cain here beat me up, sir." Skulduggery sounded completely sincere as he described how she had beat him in a fight whilst Valkyrie tried to keep the shock from appearing on her face. "Can I have some sympathy please?" he finished off. "I completely deserve some."

"No you don't, you good for nothing rascal," Kenspeckle grumped, but Val could hear the laughter in his voice. She smiled softly at the recognisable attitude that the grouchy doctor always had when she had known him.

Ghastly gave Valkyrie a knowing look. "He pretends to hate Skul, mainly because he is Grouse's most regular visitor. Skulduggery is always doing something stupid, trying to solve some 'mystery' which always leads him to broken limbs or something, but I think underneath it all, he actually likes Skul in a grumpy kind of way."

"Bespoke, what are you still doing here?" Kenspeckle yelled from the other side of the room. "Pleasant doesn't need anymore attention. He gets enough as it is"

"Sorry, sir! I'll be getting back to my lesson. Come on, Val," he said to me.

"No, Cain, can you stay here please?"

Valkyrie frowned slightly at the request. "Of course, sir." She looked at Ghastly and he shrugged before leaving.

"Miss Cain." Valkyrie jumped, spinning around on the spot to find Kenspeckle standing right beside her with a cloth and a small blue stone. "I have not seen you before around here."

"No, sir, I'm new."

"Ah, fair enough. You can beat Skulduggery in a fight."

"Without magic, yes sir. I still don't know what I'm like with my powers."

"You are likely to be even stronger with the aid of your powers. You must have been taught well."

Val smiled. "Everyone keeps saying so."

Kenspeckle put the little stone and the cloth into a pot of cold water that was at Skulduggery's bedside. He swirled the cloth around a bit before pulling it out and wiping the stuff over Skul's chin and forehead.

"He is slightly concussed from knocking his head on the floor and he has a sore chin. You okay there, Pleasant?"

Skulduggery mumbled a yes. He looked slightly sleepy, as if he was going to drop off at any second.

"Will he come back before the end of this lesson?" she asked.

"Definitely," Kenspeckle stated. "He'll be up in five minutes. The solution is very strong, but doesn't have any side affects meaning that even a strong dose is safe and it works quicker with a stronger concentration."

True to his word, Skulduggery was sitting up in less than five minutes and, after briefly being checked that his concussion symptoms had completely gone, was dismissed ten minutes before the end of the lesson.

"Thank you for not beating me up too much," Skulduggery told her as they walked together back down the corridor towards the hall again. "I really didn't want to miss Magical Combat. It is way more fun than Physical."

"What do you do?" she asked him.

"Well, you don't do all the stamina and strength building that you do during Phys Combat, but you do the fighting, as well as developing your magical skills during combat."

"Shouldn't be too difficult then," Valkyrie said, simply. "I fight with magic all the time."

"Everyone does, but the point of Magical Combat is to improve your efficiency during a fight, using aspects of you magic that can help your stamina, or strength or agility. For example, us Elementals, we can manipulate the air to help your agility during a fight, and we can use the earth for defence, although we don't use that very often. Fire is always great to keep your opponents back and distracted. Water is useful in some circumstances, like keeping rain off you during a fight, as that can be distracting, or other things."

They entered the hall just as Mr Callen was dismissing them. "Remember to be promptly back here when the bell goes!" he yelled after them and then he caught sight of the two of them. "Pleasant, Cain! Over here please!"

They jogged over. "Yes, sir?" Valkyrie asked him.

"I've set you work for the Physical Combat lessons. Every other lesson we spar with our partners. Your partner will be Pleasant here, seeing as he needs the challenge anyway. On the lessons we do general training, you will be making your way around the various equipment, pushing yourself as much as possible to improve your strength, which will definitely help you. You beat Pleasant through fighting tactics and whilst that works most of the time, I think you will find you will improve drastically and be able to beat people who use their strength to an advantage. For example, if Skulduggery had pinned you down, you would have really struggled to get out of the grab."

"Yes, sir."

"Pleasant, your technique needs to be polished off. If you and Cain practice on a regular basis, you can help each other improve and you both will go far in life. Now, go have your break and be back for Magical Combat on time."

The Dead Men, Livena and China were all outside waiting for them. China threw a slightly annoyed look at Valkyrie which Skulduggery noticed before he proceeded to ignore her completely.

Livena was in a deep conversation with Ghastly and Anton. It surprised Skulduggery, as Anton hardly ever talked to people, nor did he ever show an interest in girls. He appeared to be acting a bit strange over the past few days. Then again, he found that ever since Valkyrie and Livena had started at their school, odd things had started to happen. At least Erskine was still completely enamoured with China as normal, and Skulduggery watched him flirt badly with her, smirking under his hand.