Stellar

Chapter Eleven: Long Stellar Nights

 It turned out 'swim lessons' involved Lucine getting her ass whooped again.

Lucine had expected the 'swim lessons' would turn into Stellar training, hence why she dressed in her skinny jeans and an oversized hoodie stamped with the moon phases. Not to mention that it was midnight and the only public pool in town was closed, which meant her lessons involved another trespassing endeavor.

Hopefully she wouldn't be caught a third time. She doubted Astro would break her out of jail again.

Lucine walked a block to the pool, hood tugged up in the darkness, tensing at each leaping shadow. Soon enough, a dim light glared through the night; she rushed for it like a moth drawn to a flame.

The light was from a smartphone laying down on a poolside table, its flashlight beaming up into the sky. The light glinted off the criss-crossed black wires surrounding the pool. The entrance, a building where people would normally go to pay for tickets and change into swimsuits, was clearly locked. The only way inside was to hurdle over the seven-foot wire gates.

Lucine squinted through the wires to find Syrus standing there patiently. He noticed her and smiled. "Finally! I thought you wouldn't show up."

"Well, I'm here." She eyed the gates. "Did you...jump over these?"

"What? No! I climbed."

"Oh. Of course." Lucine hadn't even been allowed to climb trees when she was a little girl. Despite her father's obsession with launching his daughter into space and its studies, he was dead set on keeping both her feet planted to the ground.

Hesitantly, Lucine grasped the wires, her fingers hooking into the diamond-shaped nooks. Syrus watched her with an expectant gaze. Sighing, she latched her other hand on and started climbing.

She got both feet off the ground before yelping and sticking them onto the pavement once more. Lucine groaned, her fingers already throbbing from digging into the wires. Orion, what was wrong with her? All she needed to do was scale the damn fence and leap over.

And she didn't exactly have a choice to give up and walk away. She needed to train with Syrus--not only for herself, but also to help Melania. The more Lucine knew of her own powers, the more she could help her friend. Not to mention that having two trained Stellars to fight against this universe-destroying threat was a much better chance at success than one mediocre moon descendant.

After a few tries, she managed to hoist herself to the top of the fence. Looking down, the ground seemed to spin below her. Gotta train gotta train gotta train. She swung both feet toward the inside of the gates and launched herself off the fence.

Surprisingly, Lucine landed on both feet. Once the initial shock wore off, she moved over to Syrus. He considered her with that same unwavering smile.

In the silence, she raised her eyebrows. "Well? Are we training or what? You know, you show me how to do stuff and I nod my head and flail my arms around like an idiot trying to copy you."

Syrus chuckled. "We're gonna do something a little different tonight. I've thought about your inability to channel your powers in our training sessions and realized that you haven't been able to summon them due to a lack of proper stimulation."

"Stimulation?" Whatever he meant didn't sound good. A little knot formed in her stomach.

"Stimulation. Like how that Flare was shooting at you, remember?"

"I think I'd remember nearly dying," Lucine muttered.

"You were able to use your powers with such ease--at least, until you got distracted and you couldn't anymore. But maybe we can channel that sense of panic again to spark your powers."