by J. D. Dexter
Josh and Brent punch his arms. “Hey. Don’t be hating just because I told the truth.” Brian rubs his arms. “I mean, yeah, Finley-babe’s great. But not having to work anymore and go see not only the world but other universes? Hell yes. Twice please!”
We all laugh at his honesty.
“Then let us begin training.”
16
“You did say training, right? Not long, torturous murder by exhaustion and dehydration,” I say between gulping breaths. I can’t even raise an arm to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun.
“That was just our warm up, Finley. You are severely lacking in muscular tone and fitness,” Brockten says mercilessly.
“Hey, I like my body just fine.”
He rolls his eyes. “Your liking your body is not the issue. Your stamina and musculature are basically useless in terms of defense and fighting. It is good that you have not been called to serve in any war theater or active fighting zone. You would have died very early on in the engagement.” He nods his head.
“Well, excuse me for being body positive. My job doesn’t require me to be in top fighting form.” I roll onto my side, cradling my aching head on my arm.
“Nor do any of the men, but they at least have adequate stamina.”
“Stuff it, Brockten. I don’t want to see muscles popping out of my body when I flex. I like some padding on my body. My boobs are too big to look good on an overly-muscled stick.” I’m finally able to take a deep breath, my lungs stop quivering in my chest.
“Your breasts are a hindrance to your fighting. You should use your adira to make them smaller. They will only get in your way during combat,” he says calmly. Like he didn’t just tell me to chop off my ladies.
“You’ve just lost your talking privileges, Brockten. I don’t want to hear any more from your potty-mouth.” I glare at him as I make it into a sitting position in the middle of the yard.
“Bu—”
“Zip it. No more talking. I’m going to train with Keziry.” Slowly, I make my way across the yard where she’s standing with Brent and Brian.
“Why are you on your hands and knees like that, Finley?” Keziry asks, not even looking surprised.
“Brockten tried to kill me. This is all I can manage,” I say with my head hanging low. “And he said that I should make my boobs smaller using adira.”
“Well, he is not wrong,” she says.
Brent and Brian try, unsuccessfully, to smother their chuckles with coughs.
“Shut it. I’m not even sure I can change my body the way you guys can. And besides…boobs. Maybe a size or two smaller wouldn’t go amiss.”
Since my face is in my cleavage already, I give my ladies a serious thought. I’ve always whined and complained that they were too big. If I’m really going to be fighting in combat and whatnot, maybe I should try to make them smaller.
“If, and not saying I will, but if I decide to change my body with adira, how do I go about doing that?”
“The same way you heal yourself or one of your men. Simply direct the adira to the correct area and force it to do your will.”
“I’ll think about it.” I swing my head back looking up at her. Since she’s currently towering over me, I have to tip my head back pretty far.
“You do know you can use adira to help with your pain.” She makes it a statement, instead of a question.
Oops, I forgot about that.
“Yeah, of course. I’m just milking it for Brockten. He’s a slave-master when it comes to training.”
She looks at me like I’m a moron. “He hasn’t started training you yet. That was merely our warm-up sequence.”
Crap, crap, crap.
I hear more masculine chuckles from the Hastings Brigade. “Shut it, you two.”
Focusing on my sore and aching body, I send soft waves of adira to the parts that hurt the most. So, you know, every single part of my body.
“Think of them like katas in martial arts here, Finley-babe.” Brian claps a huge hand on one of my shoulders.
“Okay, I can wrap my brain around that. Why do you have so many of them?” I ask Keziry.
The furrow between her brows deepens. “Finley, you only completed five of them.”
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” I gape at her.
“No.”
“It took me three hours to learn five katas?”
“From what I could see, you didn’t learn them. You simply fling your limbs about in unrestrained movements that will have a negative impact on your stamina and endurance in combat settings.”
“Ouch. You guys really don’t joke around about your training. Want to pull that knife out of my back?” I turn, presenting my sweaty back to her.
“You have no weapon stuck in your body, Finley.”
“I was being sarcastic, Keziry.” I sigh.
“Oh. Yes, right. Brian and Brent were trying to explain this form of humor to me. I do not fully understand it, but I will attempt to master it, so that you will not feel alone in your weirdness.” She nods her head, bestowing upon me a huge favor.
I snort. “Yeah, pretty sure you’ve mastered it, Kezi.”
Her eyes widen.
“What? What did I do now?”
“Only Brockten uses a shortened form of my name,” she replies.
“Oh, sorry. I figure if you sass me, I’m not going to keep being formal with you.”
“No, no. It is not a problem. I do not have many friends I feel comfortable joking with, so I consider it an honor that you would use an informal naming convention with me.” She bows her head slightly, her cheeks dusted with pink.
“We call them nicknames, Kezi. Feel free to give me one. Lord knows the guys all have them for me, depending on their mood.” I shrug my shoulder towards to the two men next to me.
“Thank you, Finley. I shall think upon it.” She smiles.
“Sweet. Now, what exactly am I doing wrong with my katas? And what do you guys call them?” I turn towards her fully. Now that I’m not sore, I feel pretty invigorated by all the blood pumping through my body.
“Right.” She gives herself a shake. “We call them akterine. All these movements are done with control. Once you master the movements one at a time, you can move between them like water. One motion slides into the next with almost no stop. This is what battle must be, movements your body already knows how to make without conscious thought from your brain.”
She takes a few of steps back, giving herself plenty of room. Giving us a slight bow, she plants her feet shoulder-width apart. She takes a big breath, her stomach expanding as she uses her diaphragm.
Her arms seem to float in the air, rising until they are shoulder height. As soon as they reach a height she likes, they turn stiff. In a move so fast I almost miss it, she’s whipped both of her arms in front of her body and punched them through the air multiple times like she’s pummeling an imaginary opponent.
She takes two measured steps and flicks her leg out in a swiping motion. Following the momentum of her body, she swings around to use her other leg to slash on the down kick.
The blade of her right palm tears through the air on a backhanded turn, following through with the heavy fist clenched in her left hand. She brings her legs back to shoulder-width apart, touches her index finger to her brow, and gives us a slight bow.
“Pretty sure I didn’t look anything like that.”
“No. You looked more like a robot with his circuitry being ripped out,” she says, no facial expression at all.
We all burst into laughter after a stunned second.
“That was truly beautiful, in a really terrifyingly hot kind of way,” Brian tells her.
A blush of pink rides her high cheekbones.
“How many was that?” I ask.
“Three of your five.”
“Yeah, Finley-babe, you didn’t look anything like that. Back to work, C3PO.” Brian laughs, his head tipped back.
Brent’s trying to contain his smirk,
but he’s unsuccessful once again. I glare at him. He just shrugs his shoulders.
Keziry shakes her head, her own lips twitching. “When completed in full, it takes roughly twenty minutes. Each of our fighting styles use these as a base of common movement.”
“Sounds good to me. Since Brockten could only tell me to do them again, do you think you could help me get each piece of them down before moving onto the next?”
“Of course.” She glances over at the brothers. “Go away. You will distract Finley with your comments and laughter. Go learn with Josh and Hunter.” She waves them away before turning back to me.
“To begin, we need to start with your breathing. You breathe much too shallowly for decent combat. You need to begin a regimen for increasing your lungs’ capacity. Running should be a good fit.” She looks down at my boobs. “Especially if you make those smaller. I wouldn’t want to see you getting black eyes because your chest tissue slaps you in the face.”
I burst out laughing. “Boobs, Kezi. We call them boobs, breasts, ladies, girls, glad-bags, tits.” I wipe my eyes. “Chest tissue.” I laugh again.
“Glad-bags?” She looks shocked and appalled.
Still chuckling, I nod. “Yeah, I think that one came from a man who really liked boobs.”
“Huh. Men are odd.” She shrugs her shoulders.
“Too true, Kezi, too true.” I take a deep breath. “So, as pointed out, I won’t be running, but I could do some swimming. I could get a gym membership easily enough, and do some cardio there. I might also be able to get one of the guys to go with me, so I don’t have to hire a trainer to get me into shape.”
“Swimming. That is when you move through water, correct?”
I turn to look at her and nod. “You guys don’t swim?”
She shakes her head. “We do not have large bodies of water. All our water is for drinking or bathing. It is a finite resource on Ankarrah; swimming would not be an appropriate use of such precious assets.”
“Wow. Yeah, swimming is done in water. Now that I’m independently wealthy,” I chuckle, “I’ll get everyone a gym membership and you and Brockten can learn how to swim while I get into shape.”
“That would be—what’s your word again?—awesome.” She wiggles her eyebrows.
I huff a laugh. “Back to learning how to breathe.”
“Yes.” She moves her face into stern lines. “Breathing. Take your shoes off.”
I quirk an eyebrow, but toe off my shoes. “Okay.”
“Feel the ground beneath your feet. Just like Ankarrah, Earth holds energy in its core and shares that energy with everything on it. Including people. Close your eyes.”
“Clear your mind,” she says after my eyes are closed. “Remember when I asked you to remove your physical body?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Think of your body as an energy field. Connect with the energy of your body. Once you have done that, search outside of your field and connect with the earth touching your feet.”
I quiet my mind, trying to pull the feeling of being a mass of energy back into my mind. It wasn’t really a sensation I enjoyed while I was doing it the first time. I push that emotion away.
Emptying my lungs, I visualize my energy field. In my mind, my energy churns, and throbs in time with my heartbeat inside the confines of my skin. Opening my eyes, I see the wash of energy flowing and ebbing through every living thing.
The trees and plants are a vibrant mix of yellows and oranges, the colors trapped between pale pastel and vivid jewel tones. The men swirl with the different shades of their emotions and activity. Lando’s energy reminds me of a pinball machine, zips and zings of energy that fly around inside the cage of his outer shell.
Hunter still carries that silver shine, very much like Christmas tinsel. The threads of it connect to my own energy. I strum one of the silver threads gently. His energy spikes high into the neon range of colors. “Maybe not while I’m trying to learn to fight, Angel-baby.” His mental voice shimmers through me, the words caressing my energy.
“Sorry, I’m experimenting. Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“How about I let you interrupt me later?”
Even I can hear the huskiness in the mental laugh I send towards him. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I blow him a kiss through our mental link before shutting it down again.
My link with Josh isn’t as strong as the one I have with Hunter, but it’s solid. Shifting my attention to Josh’s link, I feel a tremble of unease.
“Josh. You feeling okay?” I ask aloud, my voice carrying over the sun-drenched yard.
Everyone’s movement stops.
He chuckles a little. “Yeah, Fin. Why?”
“Our adira connection looks almost like it’s atrophied.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Before, it was a bright shiny silver. Now it looks tarnished…almost like the ring Nonna left me.” I nibble on my lower lip.
“Has the link with Hunter eroded yet?” Kezi asks me in a quiet voice.
“Yet? What the hell does that mean?” I turn to glare at her.
“Just answer the question.”
I shake my head. “No, his is stronger than ever. It’s also pliable and seems unbreakable.”
“Josh, could you please come here?” Kezi raises her voice.
Everyone comes over to join us in the back corner of the yard. “She only asked for Josh, guys.”
“Don’t care. We’re all in this together. She asks for one, she gets us all,” Brian says simply.
“Josh, have you been experiencing any unusual physical symptoms?” Keziry asks.
A wisp of reddish-brown swims through his normally blue and indigo-tinged Spectrum. “No.”
“Lie.” I say, my tone matter-of-fact.
“Get out of my head, Fin. I didn’t invite you in,” se snarls, his lip curled up.
“Don’t lie, I won’t have to tell on you. Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m feeling fi—” Another wash of dark, muddy red through his Spectrum.
“LIE! What aren’t you telling me, Joshua Matthew?”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Finley Marie. You’re not my mother.”
“No, but I love you. What are you hiding?”
“Man, just tell her. You know she’ll bug you—and all of us—if you don’t,” Brent mumbles.
“Stay out of it, Brent. This doesn’t concern you either.”
Everyone goes silent. Josh doesn’t talk to us like that. He’s the peacemaker, the defender—against outsiders. He doesn’t fight with his cousins or me.
“Whoa. Where did that come from? Something’s wrong, man,” Brian says.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the energy field that is Brockten move back and away from the group, placing himself behind Josh’s form.
“You said last night that you weren’t feeling well. Are you still feeling like crap?” I ask, my voice gentle.
“I told you. I. am. FINE.” He practically growls at me.
I whirl on Kezi. “What the hell is happening to him? He’s obviously not fine. He doesn’t snap at us like that. Something’s wrong.”
The zinging energy form of Lando slips his short, fried chicken body, and becomes the twelve-foot tall lithe whippet of energy. Lando moves next to Brockten, acting like brackets around Josh’s body.
Josh’s Spectrum loses more of his typical blue. Replaced with charcoal and smoke, his entire energy field turns muddy.
“What are you doing, Josh?” I can hear the hysteria rising in my voice. “Whatever it is, you’ve got to stop.”
Another tendril of black smoke wafts across his hazy Spectrum.
Suddenly, Brockten and Lando reach out, their energy latching onto Josh, holding him like tethers anchored into the ground.
“Get off me!” Josh starts screaming. High-pitched sounds of anguish and pain that rip from his mouth.
“What’s happening?” I ask Keziry. “Someone be
tter tell me now.”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” she whispers.
“Come to what?!? Keziry, so help me God, if you don’t do something to help him or tell me how to, we’re going to have massive problems.” I get in her face.
Keziry’s arm tighten around my upper body. “You can’t help him.”
“No! I don’t accept that. There’s always something, always something.” I start to move towards Josh, his wailing crushing my heart.
“Let me go, Kezi. Let me go and tell me what the hell is happening to him.”
She eyes me, her face drenched in sorrow. She just shakes her head.
“Let me go, Kezi. I won’t tell you again.” I say calmly.
“I can’t. I can’t risk you. You are necessary for our fight against Anixia. Josh is not.”
I fling adira at her, pushing her away from my body with the force of my adira.
Rushing towards Josh, I force more adira into my connection with him. His body spasms like he’s being hit with defibrillators.
“Stop, Finley. You could kill him.” Brockten’s baritone voice stops me in my tracks.
“What can I do? There has to be something.” I look up at Brockten. I can barely make out his physical features with my altered vision.
“There is nothing you can do. If you force more adira into him. The small portion of adira you gave him could explode, damaging his mind completely. He would become a puppet, nothing more than a housing for your excess adira,” Brockten tells me, his voice the softest I’ve ever heard it.
“No, there has to be something. Anything.” I cry.
“Perhaps I could take him to Ankarrah to Shavix. He has…ways…of saving certain adira forms,” Lando offers.
Another convulsion hits Josh’s body, wrenching his body side to side. I blink away the adira, using my human eyes to see him clearly.
I choke back a sob. Josh’s eyes have begun to bleed, the rivulets of red streaking down his cheeks, the whites of his eyes slowing soaking up the same charcoal color of his adira.
“Finley, do something,” Brent says, growling.
“Now, Finley Marie. Save him,” Brian adds. “Do something—anything.”
“Can Shavix save him?” I ask Lando.
