Dead Lines

5: A Little Training

Unedited.

I was standing in the middle of a virtual environment at the Agora thanks to the projection room. As it turned out I had full access to both places and since it was now my decision, I spent most of my waking Elite time here instead of at the Schola. I only slept there now and at first Andrzej was upset about that. In his mind, even though I was now something quite different, I was still Assarion and trading one place for another shouldn’t have been so easy. It got to him. The Schola was his only home after all and he didn’t understand why I would want to leave it. Not many of the other Elite liked the fact that I could go in between the two houses but no one outwardly said anything. I kept to myself, only talking to my small circle of Elite acquaintances, and everyone else left me alone.

I wasn’t really paying attention as one of the redwoods in front of me was suddenly uprooted and came swinging in my direction.

There wasn’t even enough time for me to say anything in surprise as my body reacted on instinct, my feet pushing off from the ground and shooting me a good hundred feet into the air. They told me the projection room could be anything they needed it to be. I never imagined it would be a real forest.

Regardless of what Andrzej would like to believe, I couldn’t do everything. Including flying. I wasn’t Superman.

I caught a glimpse of the tree tops before I was suddenly plummeting back to Earth. Or falling gracefully I guess. My mind was panicking but this was one of the moments my body saw fit to disconnect from my brain and do its own thing. So even though I wanted to flail, scream, and basically act like a cartoon character, the rest of me saw fit to act like this was an everyday occurrence and easy as pie. My body was straight, my arms down by my side and as the ground quickly approached my feet, I felt everything loosen up a little. My feet connected with the ground, my knees bent to absorb the contact. And like I was a rock coming back down after being thrown into the air, there was a muffled boom and a little shock wave of air and dust billowed out around me.

“Whoa,” I said to myself as my body finally became mine again and I held my arms out to stabilize myself. “That was insane—oh shit!”

The tree I just jumped over came careening back in my direction and I had enough time to drop myself to the dirt before it swept over me. Then I had to roll to my right as the tree was brought vertical and slammed into the ground inches from my head, rerooting itself in the earth.

I lay there, panting into the dirt. Little grains even went up my nose making me sneeze before rolling over to lay flat on my back. Oh these training sessions were going to kill me.

I blinked and instead of staring up at the grey sky, I found the ceiling to the projection room blinding me. Bright white squares outlined in back seemed to pulse light until I closed my eyes completely. A headache was blooming behind my eyes and it wasn’t from the adrenaline rush.

“You’re not concentrating!” Kells roared and I flinched.

I didn’t even bother trying to say something back or peel myself off the floor because he would just put me back down. Kells oversaw most of my training with Cecil and Andrzej. He volunteered for the job as only a God or Goddess could truly rival what Hades had turned me into.

My eyes opened and Kells’s face was soon hovering over mine, his brow furrowed in anger. I was starting to miss his more feminine side.

As he would say, he was definitely swinging more in my direction.

He was staying away from Salmacis in order to train me because he was afraid his girly side was more liable to coddle me and cover me in pink band-aids than grill me like he was supposed to.