The two of them went back to their group, laughing and talking cheerfully as they rejoined their group. Even as the evening went on, both of them still contemplated that a runal could project into Aorírdal, right past the many PDTs and under Mato’s nose, and why only a few people could see her.
II
Celes jumped back as Mischa swung a right hook for her face, the pull of gravity tickling her cheeks from his gravitokinesis. She telekinetically pushed back, causing him to stumble backward. Taking advantage of his split-second confusion, she psionically blinked towards him. To anyone watching it looked like she teleported, and using the force of the blink, she propelled Mischa against the padded wall. He slammed against the wall, the force expelling the air from his lungs. Using her own gravitokinesis, she smashed him back down onto the floor. Mischa coughed and sputtered just in time for the timer to sound across the room to signal the match’s end. He pushed himself to his feet, wobbling unsteadily.
“Tie,” their instructor announced lazily. A large Kath’laka, the instructor looked bored watching adolescents fight with full contact. The other recruits sitting in the sidelines either cheered or groaned, with Aloi shrieking, “C’mon, finish him!”
“Damn it.” Mischa cracked his neck, his corded hair intermingling with electrical tubes on his tinted green scalp. He approached Celes, who stuck her hand out with a grin. “You give as good as you get. No wonder Angvar told me to watch out for you.”
“Good fight,” she smiled as he gripped her forearm, and she gripped his. Their previous match ended with her on her stomach with a bloody nose which had been fixed right before their next match.
“Gotta practice though, in case we’re up against team five, right?” Mischa asked, and Celes nodded, feeling a knot of anxiety in her stomach.
Finals were coming up in the next month. Besides the obvious test of physical prowess and fighting ability, she had to ace a myriad of subjects. Including demonstrating knowledge of XIK types and running through simulations of XIK fighting and security scenarios, she had to win a match with her team. Less than half of last year’s recruits passed, and the twenty-five percent causality rate had stayed consistent. Ayzize had brushed off the concern, saying that the causality rate was ‘rather low’, but that was twenty-five percent more than she liked.
“Yeah,” Celes said aloud to Mischa, clearing her throat and putting on a brave face. Mischa easily acknowledged when he was bested and accepted it, but that just motivated him into a rivalry. She knew that if he were pushed to kill someone in finals, he would do it. “You’re still a little shaky; need a hand to the doc's?”
“No need,” he waved her off as the other recruits in the audience got to their feet, both of their own teammates heading for them. “Ovuni’s been doing all right in Medpsy,”
“I heard that,” Ovuni grumbled as soon as she reached them, and her hand shot out to grip his forearm and pull him roughly towards her. “‘Keep your guard up, keep your guard up.’ I could hear that you didn’t even have your shields up. You need to listen to Bugrlag.”
“Yes, mom,” Mischa muttered, and for a moment Celes remembered her own mother fussing over her when she had a cut knee.
“Finally!” Aloi cried as she reached Celes, Lyati shortly behind her. While Aloi seemed to grow barely over sixty-one inches, her broad shoulders, legs and arms already rippled with muscle. Lyati, on the other hand, had grown taller than the both of them, reaching two meters, and the branches and flowers on her head cascaded down to her back. “I thought you would lose that one. You keep getting lazy on your left side.”
“Perhaps we should install a sensor for your Tristat...” Lyati murmured, her orange eyes flicking to Celes’ left temple.
“All right, all right.” Celes waved Mischa and his teammates off as they headed out of the gym, the rest of the recruits following. “I know that the left needs a bit of work; I’m on it.”
“I can keep punching you in the face until you get it through your skull to dodge,” Aloi mimicked the action, her fists halting an inch from Celes’ left temple, though it didn’t stop Celes from flinching. “Both of you gotta pass this, or we all fail.”
“We will pass,” Lyati stated, putting her hands behind her back. “Despite some of our weaknesses, we’ve been doing well as a team and on an individual level. But don’t get arrogant,” she warned Aloi, grimacing when the Levan gave her a dramatic look of shock.
“Last thing we need to do is jinx it,” Celes muttered, then tapped her Tristat. In AR form, she looked over her blocked out schedule, checking the time. “Class went over; we will be late if we don’t hurry.”
“Agreed,” Aloi said as Lyati nodded solemnly. “Let’s not keep the mentors waiting. Meiri’s fun and all, but her lectures last for hours, and I got some studying to do.”
*
Noc’s rays glittered through the force field dome, warming the mentors who paced outside of HQ. Ayzize leaned against the sleek metal wall next to an Aphin Selyn, wincing when he touched the bandage next to his left eye.
“You’re not upholding the archaic human notion of scarring equaling battle prowess, are you?” the Aphin Selyn, named Cochis, scowled to Ayzize, his milky eyes peering at Ayzize’s cheek.
“Humans didn’t have the means to take scars away back then. They had to make living with it appealing,” Ayzize replied. His hair had grown to his ears, and crow’s feet etched the corner of his eyes. In all honesty, he felt worse about the crow’s feet than the face wound a Ka-XIK had inflicted on him a month ago.
“Hm.” Cochis shook his head, flicking a four-fingered hand covered in small spikes. The red Tristat holo-band flowed across his eyes. “Heard the latest?”
“Since getting out of quarantine? No.” Ayzize’s latest fight, with the Ka-XIK slashing its claws and ripping Ayzize’s helmet and skin, left the possibility of him becoming a Dormant, and he had been heavily monitored until recently.
Ayzize’s AR array through his Tristat lit up, a 3-D model of the Jareshi Empress popping up with blocks of notes on the side. “Newest Active,” Cochis said grimly, waving a hand to bring up the notes, translating them from the Selyn trade language to English.
Ayzize frowned as he read them. “Not a queen of a colony, but the Empress.”
“Yes.”
Ayzize gritted his teeth. While Dormants had been steadily increasing for the past three centuries, they were comprised of low-ranking officials, regular scientists, and workers. Now every species had high ranking Dormants in government, military, and science organizations. “Most Empresses have been content with being figureheads; is this one invoking Right of Power?”
“She is. The Jareshi ambassador has pushed back since he has done all the work for the past century and the Jareshi government supports him, but she still has more influence than any of the other Dormants.”
“Wonderful,” Ayzize muttered, and spotted a large group of recruits heading towards HQ. “These recruits will have the worst situation in a very long time,” he said, thinking of Celes.
Cochis patted his shoulder. “Your apprentice will make it,” he said, stretching his mouth into a wide oval to mimic smiling. “She’s got you.” He put his hand down, his body shivering. “Well, I’m off; gotta get news on my next assignment.”
“That’s if you survive another interrogation with Doth,” Ayzize smirked, and Cochis waved him off, heading into the HQ building.
Within a few minutes, the recruits spotted their mentors and broke off from the group. Once Celes came into view, Ayzize lifted an eyebrow. He had been gone for a month before arriving and spent another month in isolation while quarantined, but she had changed in that short amount of time. She had cut her black hair to her chin, and she looked a little taller.
Her violet eyes lit up when she found him, and she immediately broke into a run, pushing past her fellow students, barreling into Ayzize and throwing her arms around him. He put a foot back to prevent stumbling, some other students and mentors chuck
ling at the jubilant greeting. Clearing his throat, he hesitantly patted her back. “Nice to see you.”
“I was hoping you were well enough for the meeting,” Celes grinned up at him, finally releasing him. “You have to tell me everything about what happened. I heard it was epic! What’s that?” She pointed to the bandage on his face, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
“Something that is healing, it’s fine,” Ayzize said dismissively, waving to Aloi and Lyati when they waved to him as they headed to Kyr and Meiri. “I can tell you about what happened later; I need to go over your scores. Let’s go.”
As they walked to their favorite spot in the forest copse, Celes filled him in on what had happened in the past few months. Ayzize listened to everything she had to say; she picked up alien dialects in class, and she talked about the ‘juicy’ gossip of several recruits dating, with some misadventures sprinkled here and there. Once the two of them reached the Arber tree, glowing a shimmering blue with white petals this time of year, they sat down at the trunk, Ayzize pulling out two containers of food.
“Oh, thanks,” Celes said as he handed it to her, and she blanched once she opened to see a large assortment of vegetables and meat. “Yaaaaay....”
“You need more nutrition. You weren’t getting enough vitamins and showed signs of fatigue when you aren’t supposed to. Switch out the carbo for water and you can have ice cream once a week,” Ayzize said firmly, pulling up her med charts and scores via his Tristat while she scowled. “Ah, good, thanks for signing the waiver.”
“Well, yeah, ‘course you can see it,” she grimaced as she popped a piece of broccoli into her mouth. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“If Raxdrýn values anything, it’s privacy,” he said. How much so, she didn’t yet realize. He scanned her latest scores, then waved a hand to see the holo chart comparing her results from previous testing. Overall, the charts showed an increase of improvement, with high scores in Xenolinguistics, Xenobiology, and Psionic combat. Her lowest score, however... “What’s this about hand-to-hand combat?”
Celes pursed her lips, deciding to shove more vegetables in her mouth than say anything.
Ayzize sighed, opening his own container of food while keeping the scores in view. He had to make sure he wasn’t being biased; he had his own weaknesses, but perhaps it was the self-assured martial artist in him that found her low physical combat skills unacceptable. “I’m seeing excellent scores overall, and even in hand-to-hand—your lowest—you have improved. However,” he speared a piece of meat with a utensil, chewing on it as he waved around more charts, “hand-to-hand combat needs to be higher than it currently is. It can’t hurt.”
“But I did so well in Psionic...”
“I know, and that’s good, but,” he looked at her in the eyes, pointing his utensil at her, “be honest. Did you slack off in hand-to-hand because you do so well in Psionic?”
She pursed her lips again, narrowing her eyes. “Maybe.”
“Not anymore.” Ayzize picked at his steamed broccoli. Chefs left it unseasoned again. When he caught her rolling her eyes, he shook his head. “I know you don’t like it and that you find it exhausting. I don’t care. I’m training you in it before finals.”
She brightened immediately, knowing it was technically against protocol for mentors to train their apprentices before finals. “Would you even have time before your next assignment?”
“Yes; I’m here for another month.” Ayzize furrowed his brow as he considered her scores again, categorizing the hand-to-hand combat into the martial arts type. “Mal-Dov style seems to be your strongest; we’ll stick with that.”
Celes cocked her head at him, munching on an alien meat she had said tasted like chicken. “They give you a vacation?”
“Something like that, but I can’t leave the compound yet.”
“Why not?”
Ayzize turned the charts off so they wouldn’t block her face. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“Can’t tell me before finals.” She crossed her arms, still holding the container as she stared at him with a grumpy look. “You won’t believe how done I am with that answer.”
Ayzize gave her a wayward smile. Despite being insanely curious about the big ‘Raxdrýn secret’, she and her friends had yet to siege R&D. The worst that they had done was cornering and berating Doth three years ago. As punishment, Doth had ordered them to clean all the toilets in the complex. They never bothered him again. Lyati said she still had nightmares about it, and Aloi got into fistfights with other kids who left the bathrooms a mess. Celes just had this blank, faraway stare anytime someone mentioned the incident. “You’ve been patient; wait a few more months.” And enjoy not knowing.
Celes pouted but uncrossed her arms and continued eating her food. “Ugh, fine. You’re here for a month—which I’m happy about, by the way, though dunno why you have to stay in the complex—and will train me with Mal-Dov.”
“Correct.”
She fell silent for a moment, pushing around a grape tomato. “Can you be honest with me?”
“When am I not?” he smirked.
“Well... yeah, dumb question.” Her face furrowed in concern. “What kind of chance do you think I have? For finals and... beyond that?”
Ayzize chewed on his food thoughtfully, then swallowed. “You already have a good chance to succeed in finals,” he said honestly. “Definitely not ready to be a Varôk, no student is, but you will be ready enough to train in the field. The reason why I want you to concentrate with Mal-Dov,” he pulled up her chart again, following the steadily increasing line on the graph, “is because I need you to be more than just passing. You need to be the utmost best at this. Those other kids?” He waved a hand around the complex. “They’re good. Some of them are great. Lyati and Aloi are excellent fighters and strategists, and you all have excellent teamwork. But few have it in them to be the best, and to survive.” He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, this time not awkwardly. “You are one of those few.”
Celes stared at him, mouth open and container hovering in her hand. “Really?” she asked, blinking quickly. “Even though I suck at hand to hand?”
Ayzize nodded, his face set. “When I first met you when you were six years old, I knew it. Even as you grew older on Endeavor, you had a strength most adults didn't have. That determination, that drive, is rare. You have it in you to not only pass basic, but to become an incredibly strong and perceptive Varôk. And now that you’re almost ready for me to train you one-on-one from now on, I will not rest—and nor will you—until I know that you will continue to survive, no matter what.”
Celes’ eyes watered, and she set down her container, leaning up from sitting on the grass to hug him. Ayzize blinked, taken aback by the gesture, but she withdrew from the brief hug, as if remembering that he still wasn’t used to embracing.
“Thank you, Ayzize,” she said, this time resting her hand against his shoulder, smiling at him. The breeze gently ruffled her hair, and the sun lit up her violet eyes. “I needed that.”
“You will be fine, Celes,” he replied, patting her head. She grinned, looking down, and for a moment he remembered when she was just ten years old, small and bouncy and curious, and now she neared adulthood, with her features lengthening, and she looked more and more like her mother.
As they got back to eating, smiling and discussing a new schedule, he remembered his promise to Akira that she had made him repeat back: the promise to keep her daughter safe, no matter the consequences, even if the galaxy turned against them. Ayzize wondered, not for the first time, how much Akira knew, how much she had understood, and what her reference to ‘the origins of hope’ truly meant.
Now, with thousands of powerful Dormants scattered across the galaxy, more and more of them becoming Active, something cataclysmic infected each galactic civilization. The galaxy had already turned against them, and no one knew it quite just yet.
About The Author
Anastasia Maria Drapievsky
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br /> Anastasia Maria Drapievsky grew up surrounded by fantasy and science-fiction films and books from a young age. When not daydreaming about fantastic landscapes with epic plotlines, she is writing or drawing. Her other hobbies include traveling, reading, and playing RPG games. She lives in North Carolina with her dog, Kenji.
To find out more, please visit: www.AnastasiaDrapievsky.com.
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