Rise of the Fallen

Chapter 8: Training

The next morning, I wake up with the sun just peering through the curtain and the smell of breakfast fills the air. I sit up in the bed and see a set of clothes laid out at the edge of the bed. I get up, stretch, and head to the bathroom to take a shower.
As I walk out of the bathroom I walk over to the edge of the bed and put on the clothes that were laid out then head downstairs. Henry is cooking in the kitchen and my uncle’s outside on the terrace reading the paper at a glass table.
He waves over to me to sit down at the table with him.
“Good morning Henry.” I say as I walk to the patio door and open it.
“Good morning nephew, I figured you wouldn’t be up until noon. Come sit.” Arthur says as I sit down across from him at the table.
“Ah, I can never sleep for long.” I says
“I see. Coffee?” he offers as he signals Henry over.
“No, I’m alright.” I decline.
“Alright then,” he says as Henry come over, “Could you please make a cup of coffee for me?”
“Of course, Sir.” He says as he walks back into the kitchen.
“So, Daniel, what exactly did you come here for.” Arthur says as he flips the page.
“I… Well, Julius and I are…” I start to say as my uncle interrupts,
“Not, what you and Julius want. I’m asking what you want. What does Danny want?”
Henry walks past me and places two plates of eggs, bacon, and waffles on the table and a cup of coffee for my uncle. Looking down at the plate I can’t help but remember my mom.
“I want to know exactly what my dad was working on. It couldn’t just be the mission that got him killed. He was retired right? So why attack him years after the fact? I’ve been thinking about this whole thing and something’s just missing.” I say as I start to take small bites out of the scrambled eggs.
Arthur sips his coffee and says, “I don’t know much about what happened after he retired but, I do know that the last bit of information Jack and Jerimiah found were… speculatory at best.”
“What was it?” I ask as I start to take bigger bites.
“They thought that The Grigori were using the Fallen to “set the stage” as you say, for their return and that one Fallen Angel is making them while the others break their seals and return.” Arthur says as he starts to eat, “I still not too sure about the Grigori coming back due to fallen, but whatever they’re planning it can’t be good.”
“But why did someone from the Order kill them?” I say as tears well up in my eyes.
“I can’t answer that.” He says as he shifts his eyes away, “I can only tell you that the more you look into this the more dangerous things will get. You’re only what now fifteen and just now able to get into the Academy?”
“What are you saying?” I ask with my voice starting to shake.
“Go back home Daniel. I know you want to find the person who took your parents away from you, and I do to, but there’s too little information.” He says in a stern but understanding tone, “And as far as continuing on what your dad was looking into, you’re too weak.”
“But I’ve killed plenty of giants.” I says
“Nephilim are just the tip of the iceberg. There are countless beings out in the world stronger and smarter than them. That’s why the academy uses them for training. You haven’t even encountered a demon yet, and you think you can take on a Fallen.”
“I can at least try.” I says, “and I’m not alone either.”
“Try? Daniel, there are no do overs in this. You mess up and people die, just like they did on that plane. What if you and Julius die before you even find the killer?”
“Then we’ll just die trying.” Julius says as he walks outside and sits down in the chair next to me.
“Hotheaded, just like your father.” Arthur says, “Well, be that as it may, I still feel that instead of rushing towards your death, why not go back and to the Academy and learn what you need to learn before taking this on.”
“Why don’t you teach us then?” Julius offers, “You says it yourself, we’re only just now in the Academy, so why not teach us what we need to learn.”
Arthur scoffs, “What makes you think I have the time to babysit you two? I have a business to run.”
“Ok, then we’ll just have to figure it out in the field.” Julius says as he sits back in the chair.
Arthur sighs and says, “You’re a lot smarter than I gave you credit for… but alright. I’ll train you, but only until I feel like you’re able to take care of yourself.”
“Yes!” I exclaimed
“But if any of you say it’s too hard, you go back to the Academy no questions asked.” He says as he drinks the last bit of his coffee, “Agreed?”
“Oh yea, no complaints here.” I say as Henry places a plate full of food in front of Julius.
“Thanks Henry.” Julius says as he start’s to dig in.
“So, Uncle, when are we starting?”  I ask as I finish eating.
“We can start tomorrow. You boys rest, especially you Daniel.” Arthur says as he stands up out of the chair. He grabs his cane and walks back towards the door.
“Where will be training at exactly?” I ask before he goes back into the penthouse.
“Follow me and I’ll show you.” Arthur says. I get out of the chair and walk after him.
“Julius, you coming?” I ask as Arthur opens the sliding door.
Julius burps and says, “Excuse me. That was a big one, but I’ll catch up Danny, go on ahead.”
“Alright.” I say as I follow behind my uncle to the elevator.
He presses the button to the floor right below us. We exit the elevator, and the entire floor of the building was converted into a training area with padded floors, punching bags, gloves, weights, and practice weapons.
“This is where you’ll be training for now.” Arthur says as I step out of the elevator and onto the padded floor.
“Can I stay here a while?” I ask walking around the modified floor.
“Sure, just don’t overwork yourself.” Arthur answers, “Just come back up when your done looking around.”
“Alright.” I say as the elevator door closes and takes my uncle to back to the penthouse.
Clenching my fist, I take a deep breath and start to do some warmup exercises before I start to train. After warmups, I walk over to the sandbag and throw a light jab. The sandbag swings back. It swings back forward as I sidestep around it and throw two, slightly harder jabs, followed by a right hook that knocks the sandbag sideways.
I reposition myself in front of the sandbag and start alternating from punches to kicks while using more power with each blow. Dodging the sandbag as it swings back, I start to work on my footwork as the bag swings back with more force.
Training like this takes me back to when I first learned how to throw a punch. During the first two years of living with Jaq, he would take me to a gym he worked out at. Everything was still pretty fresh in my mind, so I kept my distance from people and stayed close to Jaq. I would watch him work on the sandbag for hours. He would hit the bag with so much force the bag would nearly fly off the chain.
Originally, I thought that he was just training to stay sharp, but one day he asked me to get a bottle of water from the front desk while he was punching the sandbag like he usually did. I got the water and walked back to the boxing part of the gym and saw Jaq crying while hitting the sandbag as hard as he could.
“Are you crying?” I says as I walked to him holding the bottle of water
Jaq stopped the sandbag and wiped his tears and says, “Yea, bud. I was. I’m just missing your pops. That’s all.”
He sat down on the floor and motioned to sit down next to him. “I know it’s hard. Coming to a completely new place after what happened. Do you know why I come here every day and bring you?” Jaq says as I sat down.
I shake my head as he continues, “I met your dad when I was just entering the Academy. I was fifteen and going through something similar that you’re going through. I was cocky after getting into the Academy. So, I started challenging any and every one to fight. I was winning for four days straight. He came over to me and challenged me.”
“Did you win?” I asked
Jaq chuckled and answered, “I lost pretty bad, but after he beat me, he came over to me and asked if I wanted to train.”
“What did you say?” I says thoroughly interested now.
“I told him no, but Jack, he… he never gave up and I eventually went to train with him.” Jaq says as he chokes up, “The first thing he taught me, was that I needed therapy.”
“The-ra-py?” I asked
Jaq nod his head and says, “Therapy is somewhere you go to tell someone all your problems, but his idea of therapy was… different.”
“How?” I asked
“He says that therapy was punching the sandbag with everything you had until you have nothing left. No energy to punch and no tears to shed. Let everything thing out at the bag.” Jaq says as he stand me up and moves me in front of the bag.
“You put your arm here and here. That’s good just like that. Now hit the bag.” He instructed. As soon as I hit the bag tears just started to flow out.
The sound of the elevator stopping on the floor snaps me out of my memory. I catch the sandbag and wipe my sweat. The elevator opens and Julius steps out and whistles as he looks around.
“It’s pretty big in here.” He says as makes his way towards me, “Where have you been all day it’s almost five?”
Confused I ask breathing hard, “Five? I’ve been down here that long?”
Julius nods and says, “Your uncle wanted me to check on you plus I wanted to see the set up.”
“I appreciate it.” I say, “So, what do you think about this whole thing with the Grigori, the Fallen and our parents?”
Julius sits down on the bench press and says, “Hmm. I’m not sure yet, but if what they were investigating was only “speculatory” like your uncle says, then what sense does it make killing them?”
“That just means there’s some weight to what they were investigating.” I say.
“If that’s the case then…” Julius says
“We just have to pick up where they left off.” I say, finishing his sentence.
After talking, Julius and I train until late into the night. Exhausted, both of us go straight to sleep, only to be awoken at four o’clock by Henry and my uncle.
“Wake up, Wake up. It’s time to train!” My uncle yells, “Get up and get in the shower. Henry has some training clothes. I expect you to be down stairs and ready in an hour.”
Groaning, I force myself out of the bed, get in the shower, and put a pair of grey sweat pants and a T shirt that says Arthur’s Best Vehicle Insurance. After I get dressed I trudge down the stairs where my uncle dressed in matching sweat pants and sweat shirt is sitting on the couch drinking a cup of coffee.
“What are we doing so early in the morning?” I ask rubbing my eyes.
“Well, you and Julius will be running for the next three hours give or take how long it takes us to get to East New York and back.” My uncle says as Julius comes down the stairs rubbing his eyes.
He yawns and says, “Alright, let’s just knock this out so we can eat.”
“That’s a good way of putting it.” Arthur says, “Henry? Can you bring the boy’s equipment? They’ll need it.”
“Yes, so our stuff made it.” I say ecstatically.
Henry comes in hands us each a black case with a red cross on the front.
“I figured mine would be… a little bigger. I asked him for a shotgun.” Julius says sounding a little disappointed.
“They did send that over it’s just that you won’t need it today. Go on and open it.” My uncle says.
I open my case and just like I asked for, there were four black daggers with a black rope handle and a ring at the end. I take out one and it feels right in my hand. The weight is even all the way through. In the case were sheathes for each of them.
I put the daggers in their sheathes and slide one on each side of my waist. Leaving the other two in the case, I close it and look at Julius holding a pair of black brass knuckles.
“Brass knuckles? Really?” he says unimpressed.
“Press the button on the side.” My uncle points out.
Julius presses the button with his thumb and a blade spring out of both of them. Julius smiles and says, “Oh yea. This is it right here.”
“I’m glad you’re happy with them. Are you two ready to go?” Arthur asks.
I look at Julius as he puts away the brass knuckles in his pocket. He and I nod as my uncle grins and says, “Perfect. Now I have to go to a meeting. After Henry drops me off, he’ll be shadowing you if anything comes up that you can’t handle.”
My uncle presses the button for the elevator as says, “Alright get moving.”
He and Henry get in the elevator and leave the building. Julius looks at me and ask, “Why you think we need weapons if we’re just going out for a run?”
“Maybe New York’s a lot more dangerous than we thought.” I say as I press the button to bring the elevator back.
As the elevator opens, we step in and descend into our first day of training. As we step outside of the building, the sun hasn’t risen yet and the fog’s so dense we can only see a few feet in from of us and the headlights of cars riding pass.
“I can’t see anything,” Julius says as he starts to jog down the side walk, “How’re we supposed to know where to go anyway?”
Jogging after him I say, “I don’t know, but we have to do it, do you want to go back to the Academy? You know Headmaster Jean’s probably going to kill us when we get back right?”
Julius sighs and says, “Maybe, but it’s not like we aren’t doing anything.”
“You’re right about that. We just can’t go back empty handed.” I say as I jog next to him as we cross the street.
As we run deeper into the fog, a shadowy figure of a small child comes into view. “Hey Julius?” I ask
“Yea.”
“You see that?” I ask pointing to the girl in the fog.
Julius squints and says, “You seeing a girl standing in the fog, in the middle of the street at five o’clock in the morning?”
“Ye… yea,” I say looking at Julius, “Why’d you say it like that?”
“It’s weird. That’s all I’m saying. Remember the last time we ran across something weird?” He asks, but before I can open my mouth he says, “Cause I do. We fell out of a plane.”
I can’t say anything, he’s right, something does feel off. “We still have to check don’t we?” I ask. We get close enough to the girl to hear her crying.
Julius groans and says, “Ok let’s go see what’s wrong with the perfectly normal girl.”
“Sarcasm, really?”
Julius shrugs and says, “All I’m saying this is how horror movies start.”
Shaking my head, I run ahead and see the little blonde haired girl, who couldn’t be no more than three.
“Hey what’s wrong?”  I say squatting down to her level, “I’m Danny, my friend behind me is Julius. Are you lost?”
The girl stops crying and sniffles as she nods her head.
“Ok, do you know how you got here?” I ask in a caring tone.
She nods and points to my right.
“You came from down there?” I ask as she nods.
The girls grabs a piece of my shirt and grunts while she points in that direction.
I stand up and walk with the girl leading me. I turn around and see Julius following a few feet behind. We walk for a few minutes before coming across a neighborhood lined with houses in different colors.
We walk a bit further down the sidewalk until we reach a white brick house with an older lady stating on the porch crying. The girl runs up to the lady and hugs her.
Julius taps my shoulder repeatedly, “Yo D.” he says.
“What?” I ask as I turn around to him.
“The little girl’s home. Can we go now?” he asks
“We can I guess.” I answer as I turn back around to the girl and her mom and wave.
“Oh, wait!” the mother calls out as she runs down the steps with her daughter close behind.
The mother looks at her daughter and back at me and says, “Thank you so much I’ve been looking for her.”
“Oh, it’s no problem ma’am. We were just jogging down the sidewalk back there. Do you know a faster way to East New York?”  I ask
“Oh no, you just keep going down that sidewalk until you see the street sign that’ll tell you when you’re there.” She says as her daughter tugs on my pants leg.
“Thank you so much,” I say as I bend down to the girl, “Be good alright.”
The girl smiles and opens her mouth.
“What the…” I start to say as these black, almost static like hands come stretching out.
“Danny! We gotta run now!” Julius yells as I look up and see her doing the same thing.
I stand up and move back from the mother and daughter as two black static like figures slowly crawl their way out of the bodies of the two.
Julius grabs my arm and starts to run back up the sidewalk as more and more people start to come out of their homes.
“What the hell is going on?” I say as I run behind Julius.”
“Don’t think just ru…” He says before a man with a baseball bat stops in front of us and swings just as Julius got close to him.
“Hey!” I say Julius fall to the ground. The man looks at me with solid black eyes and a bone chilling grin as he raises the bat up to strike him again.
“You know what?” Julius says as he slowly gets up rubbing his jaw, “I’m starting to think this isn’t your regular neighborhood.”
Julius reaches inside his pocket and before the man could swing at him, he’s sent flying into the street light
“Hm, brass knuckles might not be so bad.” He says looking at the brass knuckle on his right hand, “Danny behind you!”
Before, I can turn around the static creature grabs me, wrapping it’s claw like hands around my neck from behind. Struggling, I pull out the knife from my right hip and slice one of the arms that’s gripped around my throat.
As soon as the creature’s grip loosens I break free and turn around to face the monster. It has no face and it’s body and limbs were long as its body. When it opens its mouth, it let out a gut wrenching scream. The people of the neighborhood start rushing out of their houses and surround us.
“I guess running’s out. What now?” I ask as I take out the knife that’s strapped to my left hip.
Julius puts on the other brass knuckle and presses the button to release the knives.
“I guess we just have to fight our way out.” Julius says as he charges into one of the creatures in front of him.
“I guess that means I’ll the one behind us.” I say to myself as the creatures come at me one after another.
As the sun rises and the fog clears, we finally make it out of that demon infested neighborhood. My shirt’s tattered and torn. Julius’s shirt is completely gone, and we both have more than a handful of scars.
When we get to the end of the street Henry’s black car awaits to take us back to Arthur’s building. The window on the passenger’s side rolls down and my uncle turns to us and says, “You’re late. It’s already eight o’clock. What happened?”
Julius and I look at each other and then back at my uncle. “We got lost.” I say as I open the rear door and get in the backseat.
“Yeaaa lost.” Julius repeats sarcastically as he gets in the car.
The car was silent the whole drive back to my uncle’s building. When we finally made it back to the penthouse my uncle says as he sits at his desk, “I know you have questions.”
“Questions? I have more than questions!” Julius exploded.
“Julius.” I start to say as he cuts me off.
“No Danny, I don’t mind training, but I hate being played.” He says as he slams his hand down on Arthur’s desk.
“I can see that, but you’ve survived worse haven’t you?” he says calmly, “Yes I neglected to tell you about the shapeshifting demons. I was testing your ability to adapt, and it looks to me you pass with flying colors.”
Julius clenches his fist and lets out a deep breath, “Fine. If you need me I’ll be in my room.” He says as he turns around and walks up the steps, “and Henry could you bring some French Toast and an omelet to my room?”
“I’ll get on it.” Henry says as he walks into the kitchen, “And you master Danny?”
“Waffles and bacon if it’s not too much trouble?” I ask as I sit down on the couch.
Henry nods and starts to cook. “So, Danny, what did you think about today?” my uncle says.
“It was shocking to say the least, but I think I understand what you wanted us to learn.” I say
“Hm, do you now?” he asks.
“I think that along with being able to adapt you wanted us to learn things like that these…”
“They’re called shifter demons or shifters for short.” My uncle finishes,
“Right, these shifters like to live in communities, but not very strong individually.” I say as my uncle nods in agreement.
“Exactly. It may seem harsh but the world you’re trying to step into is much worse.” My uncle says, “Now you’ll be doing runs like that every morning and for the rest of the day you’ll either be studying or down in the gym training.”
“Ok, then what?” I ask
“We’ll see.” My uncle answers as Henry brins me my plate and takes Julius’ upstairs to his room.
“And another thing Daniel. I’ve been looking into what you told me, and I think I found something.” He says as Henry some back down the stairs, “Henry? Could you had Daniel that scroll on the counter?”
I look back and see Henry pick up a small scroll. He walks over to me and puts it on the coffee table in front of me. I put my plate down and pick up the scroll.
“Look at that and tell me if anything seems familiar.” My uncle says
I open the scroll and look at its contents. The words are in a language foreign to me, but in the middle of the scroll separating the text is the same picture I saw in the cave back in the Nether. My heart starts to beat faster.
“You see anything?” my uncle asks.
“Yea. Back in the Nether I saw a painting in one of the caves.” I say gulping, “It was a giant painting with a bird with its wings eclipsing the sun. Some kind of monster trampling over mountains, and a dragon like serpent under the sea.”
“Leviathan, Behemoth, and Ziz. Legend says that they are three primordial beasts with unimaginable power.” My uncle says, “Not much is known about them but,
“What does that have to do with me?” I ask closing the scroll
“I’m not sure but, I also think this involves your friend Julius. Did he see the painting?”
“No, I don’t think so I haven’t even told him about it.” I say
“Well Henry and I will keep looking into it no need to worry. Just focus on training.” My uncle says as I take my food up to my room.
Over the next two months Julius and I ran different routes around New York and learned how the various supernatural beings live under the nose of regular humans. Along with the shifters, other demons come out of the Veil into this world. We also ran into a vegan werewolf if you can believe it.
While training was fun, I can’t wait until we can go on our first mission. The morning after our last day of training my uncle Julius and I sit down for breakfast out on the terrace.
“You boys did good getting through these few months.” My uncle says as he takes a sip of his coffee, “So here.”
Arthur slides a file across the table and says, “If you want to figure out why your folks were killed, there’s your first clue. A Fallen’s been reported in Portland. If you leave now you might be able to make it before it disappears.”
I open and read the file. With Julius reading over my shoulder I ask, “Ok so, how do we get there?”
“By private jet. That way you can travel with your equipment.” My uncle answers
“Alright, when do we leave?” Julius asks excitedly
“You can leave as soon as you finish your breakfast.” he says as he cracks a slight grin.
Julius and I quickly finish eating our breakfast and run up the stairs to pack for our first mission, not knowing that today would be the last day we were ever that naïve.