Inked: The Reaper Chronicles

Seven

The so-called training room was lain out in front of him like a scene from a deranged fairy tale. Cauldrons were positoned in dipping points at opposite ends of the ceiling, held together by draping lines of spiked chains. More worryingly, on the mantlepiece at the very end there was positoned a severed arm in a glass case.

Ethan tried to remind himself that it probably wasn't one of their previous students, but by now he wasn't really that sure.

"So, what's the whole story here?" he asked Alice while readying himself.

She shifted her glass-eyed gaze to him in a way that was oddly serpentine, one that only served to increase his discomfort.

"The objective here is simple- we must navigate from this end to the far end using our most basic combat training skills and the addition of our abilities without being fatally wounded. It is also used to train new recruits such as yourself , so consider it a 'right of passage' if you may.

"Thanks." Ethan murmured through his slight overbite.

To say he was more than a little anxious about doing this without any training whatsoever was an understatement.

The others were already prepped for action- Julie stood determined with her arms balled into fists, legs spread across. Hale was bouncing eagerly on his heels ang grinning like a manic chimpanzee. Alice stood as rigid as a mannequin, as if she was just waiting in line. But with the current range of expressions, it didn't surprise Ethan much.

The strange dark woman that had been present at the meeting surveyed her students lined in front of her. By a closer perspective of her, it was obvious that she wasn't much older than the rest of them- maybe around her early twenties. The curves of her face were almost porcelain in the overhead lights.

"Xuesheng."

"Madam Riley." the rest of them all answered in unision.

"So the course awaits," she went on, her flat heels rubbing audibly with the polished floor, "and you cross it as you do everyday in talent and individual style. And to help our latest addition, today will not only be a challenge, but a demonstration."

Hale scoffed. "Challenge? Darlin', we've been doing this since before probably the kid even teetered on his one-wheeler."

Her chestnut ovals darted back in slits to the speaker, who looked thoroughly unintimidated, crossing his arms.

"Ah, Byrd. A pity as your surname is, since you'll find yourself quite unable to fly your way out of this one. And since you were the first one to so arrogantly volunteer?...."

Hale grinned, cracking his knuckles like eggshells as he stretched them out against each other. He launched himself into a full on sprint as metallic wings began to glowingly emerge from his back as he swooped himself upwards in one swift movement, avoiding a bladed pendulum that would have easily decapitated a person of less agility.

"-Piece-"

Slashing two oncoming blunt headed dummies from opposite sides vertically in half, he leapt through the spiked rings that appeared from the obstacle course floor, wings helping him upwards.

"-of-"

A wall of fire suddenly flared upwards like some ancient creature aroused from an eternal slumber. As beads of sweat trickled down his face, Hale was undaunted in the presence of the inferno, wings reverting back to their full length- blaring a golden copper in the face of the tongued flames, a full nine feet in width.

"-CAKE!"

With one swift flap the fire was extinguished into nothing, sending a shockwave reaching out so far that the arm in the glass case shuddered in its containment, swinging back and forth to the point of almost falling off.