Chapter 25 - A Hot Blade Must Be Tempered....

I walked out of the room without a second thought, walking down the corridor and feeling like I'd eaten an iceberg. My chest felt cold as ice and my body went onto autopilot as I walked the building. The upstairs didn't appear to be as colourful as downstairs and the stairwell. There were doors marked with different numbers but no names or anything. I had no idea where I was going, I just had to start searching for Silverlight. I was desperately trying not to think about what just happened. I knew it was coming, I knew that things would have to get harder and harsher, yet here I am, acting like a child who's been told Santa isn't real. All the possibilities I saw after leaving Erebus, all the hopes and dreams starting to look more like they were made of sand instead of stone.

The sounds of something clashing against something else over and over coming from down the hall. Maybe it's a gym or something, seems like a good place to start at least. Right now, anything is a distraction from thinking. The sounds are coming from a pair of push open doors at the end of the corridor, so I head that way and push them open.

It looks like some garou are sparring and fighting. A couple are armed with long knives and one even has a broadsword. This is more like it, now we're into my area of shinys. I love bladed weapons. Don't know what it is about them, but I just adore the look of them, the feel of the blade cutting through the air feels empowering. Granted, I've been forced to use them to cut more than just the air, that wasn't as much fun.

"Alex. What can we do for you?" says a voice I don't recognise.

The man who spoke is stood on the training mat holding a rapier. It's a beauty. The guy isn't bad too. He's a shade under 6ft tall, short cut dark hair spiked up. His eyes are a soft blue and he's got a day's worth of stubble on his face. He must be about the 25 mark, not old, but not young either. I recognise him as one of the pack, he'd had a few nasty gashes on his chest but nothing life threatening. Not that you could tell right now. His body is that borderline between stocky and slender. Wearing a white t-shirt that has sweat marks under the arms and under the chin. He must have been practicing for a bit today to have that level of sweat already.

"Err, I'm looking for Silverlight. I'm sorry but I don't know your name."

He nods and tilts the rapier down so it's pointing at the floor. The thing was a beauty of craftsmanship, I could tell that much from here. The pommel of the sword was a T shape with the finger guard curving around like a D underneath the bar. The handle was a solid silver colour, but I'm guessing steel rather than silver as it doesn't have a shine to it that silver does. Plus werewolves have one hell of an aversion to silver. The blade was only about an inch wide at the base and thinned to a wicked point. It was simple to most people viewing it, but I could see that there was buffed out marks on the cross guard and there was a nick or two at the base of the blade. It had seen some action alright.

"I'm Heart Piercer, though around humans you can call me Zeke. Silverlight just went with Wyrmripper, they needed to meet up with someone higher up about something. Anything I can do?" says Heart.

"Well, I'm supposed to begin training. I should go back and check with Soothing who I should report to now."

"Just a moment." says Heart and tilts his head.

He must be doing that mind speaking thing to Soothing.

"I'll do it for now, we can test some of your combat skills whilst we wait on him coming back." says Heart.

"Alright."

"Well, the armoury is there. Go get whatever weapon you're comfortable with." he points to a door at the back of the room.

I walk towards it, looking around this room properly. It's a pretty big room, decked out with a few mats which I recognise as sparring mats. There's gym equipment in one corner with a couple of ladies using the treadmills and a guy hammering into a punch bag. I recognise them again, I'm glad that everyone seems to have recovered well. There were some benefits to the mystical healing shit. Oh, looks like this place comes equipped with a climbing wall as well, might have to have a crack on that later.

I open the door and a wave of nostalgia hits me, the room is armed with a lovely selection of weapons. It's not too dissimilar to the one in my old place that blew up. The blades in here look beautiful. Moving closer I inspect the edges and handles of some of the long knives and short swords. If I didn't know better, I'd say that these were expertly crafted, but there's no way that this kind of precision comes from just craft work. They've been manufactured to be this good. I wonder what kind of procedure they used to get such a keen edge on these beauties.

There's a row of bows, of varying sizes and types, each have a quiver set with them. There's small hand axes and larger two handed axes. Not my style, but still cool looking. A sigh escapes my lips, I could spend all day here just marvelling at the weaponry. My eye's wander to below the racks and I spot a beautiful array of sheathes, some leather, some nylon. There's some that are obviously for concealed carry and a few that are blatantly not. I suppose I'd better choose something.

Looking up and down the short sword racks again I select a rather nice sabre. It was just the right weight and size for my hand as well as being short enough to hide down my back if I had to. The pommel was a small T piece, with no finger guard, very plain handle and no ornate designs on the handle. This will do nicely.

A smile spreads on my face as I realise this blade is not too dissimilar from myself. Very plain right now and waiting for the personal touch. How very zen of me. I turn to leave the room and just as I do I stop dead and take a breath in with surprise when I spot something leaning behind the door.

My hand reaches out without thinking and I pull it from behind the door. It's a beauty. I haven't seen one like this before. It gleams brightly and shows my reflection in it, in the centre is a stamped symbol I don't recognise, but I know I'd seen it before, on the walls heading up here. I turn it around and there are two nylon adjustable straps. I slide it onto my arm and pull them tight, a smile on my face. It's been years since I was able to wield a shield like this.

I adored shields, I'd managed to convince a few of the older vamps to teach me how to use these things properly as they make surprisingly good offensive weapons as well as a good defence. A sword and shield combo was my favourite, something I'd not ever been able to do outside of my own place. Okay, stuff that Santa isn't real, I'm in my own candy store here!

I emerge from the room a tad reluctantly, I'd like to spend some more time in there, but I get the feeling that werewolves aren't going to be that patient with me and I do have to get on with this training. Though stepping from the room and walking back towards Heart, I'm beginning to wish I could have stayed in there as I can feel everyone looking at me. The shield strapped to my arm isn't exactly the epitome of concealed and un-noticed.

Heart raises an eyebrow as I approach with shield on my left arm and the sabre held in my right, point downwards. Don't want to accidently stab someone.

"Sword and shield huh? Haven't seen that in a while. Hope you didn't pick that just to help you against my sword or you're going to get a few nasty surprises." says Heart.

I shake my head.

"Alright, let's get started. Shift up to your glabro form, that way you'll heal the wounds faster."

Erk. Well that sounds fun, looks like I'm gonna get stabbed a few times in this training. Well, they say pain is the best teacher. It's not one I'm looking forward to meeting.

Taking a breath I concentrate on that feeling within me, calling my beast to touch the surface. My arms swell a little as do my legs, I feel the extra strength running through my body and I step back into a guard stance. My blade is ready and point down besides my shield, never taking my eyes off Heart.

He salutes me with the blade and enters a fencing stance, I realise he hasn't shifted up into his glabro form. Either he's that good or he thinks that little of me. That's a tad annoying I'll admit, but I have to give it my all and not be distracted by the mild insult. Thinking I can best him and going all out will lead me face first into the pointy end of that blade. Confidence is fine, over confidence will get me stabbed.

He lunges forward, a normal testing strike. I let it slide along my shield, but don't move. He's testing my battle tactics. I could have pressed forward and countered when he went with the first lunge, but doing so was risky as I don't know what kind of skill level he possesses and if he was more agile than he looked, in a real battle it would prove fatal. Stepping back from the attack or parrying with my sword would have both been just as dangerous as they would reveal I was reluctant to be stabbed, which I was, but if you're calm enough and you know the strike isn't going to kill you, then taking a hit for you to claim victory is also a viable tactic.

Okay, he's stepped back from the lunge and is studying me. My turn to test his skills. I bring the shield up in front of me and lunge forward like I'm attempting to knock him off balance. He skips back as I expected, but my right arm is now coming up as I move the shield away. I'd reversed my grip on the blade and was now holding it under arm and he was within my striking distance still. He's fast, I'll give him that, he twists himself out of the way and gets his rapier in to guide my strike out of the way.

But...

I let him guide my blade and pivot on my right foot, spinning and bringing my shield around in a back hand. Goddamit this guy is good, I feel the shield edge skim him. I jump forward past him and bring my right hand up again, this isn't a fatal strike and he does what I expected, bringing his rapier up to force the blow to glance off. But more importantly I fly by and land a jump away, turning and have my guard back up before he can go at me again.

"Fuck me! You can use those bastard things alright!" he cusses.

I grin softly, I didn't spend those ten years dead doing fuck all. I reverse my grip again so I'm holding the sabre upright again. This guy uses speed, that much I can tell, he's seriously fast and uses it to deflect and guide my attacks away from him. Normally I'd over power a guy like this by using very strong attacks on him when he can't dodge, but there's nowhere for me to pin him in on this mat. I need to catch him off guard. I have an idea, but it's going to take some set up.

He comes in with a thrust, but it has to be a feint. There's no way he'd be treating me like an unskilled opponent now. The jab is withdrawn as its about to hit my shield and he twists his wrist to turn it into a slash, aiming for my face and eyes. I bring my sabre up and it pings off, I step forward and use the deflection angle to bring it down in a slice. He skips back again, out of my range quite a bit.

I go defensive again, waiting for him to strike again. He aims for my right shoulder that's not protected by my shield, but I don't think that's his real target. I bring my sabre up ready to deflect when he suddenly changes the direction as I expected. I bring my shield downwards just in time to deflect the tip and force the rapier down, narrowly missing my left leg. I don't hesitate to bring my right arm down in and arc and force him to skip back again. He does so, but not as far this time. He's getting used to my range. Good.

Rather than wait for him this time, I press forward, my shield in front as I bring the sabre out, point first in a thrust like his. He dodges back again, only just out of range. Perfect. He's gotten used to my range in just a few strikes. Now I can see about part two of my plan. However first, I'm within his range and he goes for a lunge as well, aiming for my exposed arm. I step into the lunge and let it scrape along my shield as I turn my body out of his strike, pushing hard with my left arm and forcing him backwards I bring my right arm around and upwards in groin to head kind of strike. He's dodged back again and the blade missed him by inches as I jump back too.

Now I have to concentrate. I focus very hard and turn my body slightly to the side, hiding my right arm behind my body and shield. I only have a couple of seconds before Heart comes lunging in again. This time he's aiming a strike for my throat above my shield. I duck and raise my shield to let it glance over it and he's already starting to move back, but my right arm comes up with sabre. He'd been testing my range with me in homid, but I'd had just enough time to change my right arm into the werewolf form, holding the sabre.

His eyes widen as he realises his mistake too late, the extra reach from my right arm is enough for the blade to bite into his left thigh and across his stomach. My eyes widen too as I realise I didn't control my strength, the tip of the sword scoring a very deep wound straight across him. Heart stumbles back and I drop the sabre, my arm returning to its normal state.

"Fuck!" I curse and leap forward, catching him before he can fall over backwards. I lower him gently to the floor and put my hands over the wound, trying to staunch the crimson flow down his stomach.

"Quick, someone get me a med kit!" I shout.

"It's okay, I've got this." says a female voice.

I look up as a short haired blond girl runs over and kneels down besides Heart. She puts her hands besides mine and does, well, does 'something'. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but the wound closes up beneath my hands.

"Oh thank goodness. Heart? Are you okay? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hit you that bad."

Heart sits up and huffs. "Fucking hell fire. Okay, you don't need training in any weapons. That was far too clever for a newbie to come up with. Not only that but your control to shift one part of your body during a fight, that's fucking impressive. Urgh." he gets up and I stand up too.

"Congrats, you just earned yourself a day off. There's no one else ready to take you to the next level and you're now coated in blood. Go take a bath and try meditating. It's got a surprising effect for us wolves. Soothing says you're in room 15. Take the shield and sabre with you, you'll find stuff to clean them with, in your room."

I nod and give him a quick bow before turning and heading out. I remembered seeing the door numbers a bit back down the hall, so I follow them. It doesn't take much exploring to find room 15 and it's unlocked, so I walk on in.

The room is lovely. Well for me it is. I have a minimalist attitude when it comes to my private space, so the fact that it's a double bed in a white and pastel blue room with a door to the side which I'm sincerely hoping is to the bathroom, is pretty sweet. There's a night stand with lamp. A bookshelf with a handful of books on that'll take a look at later. A wardrobe built in against the wall. It's all really cosy and surprising that such nice digs were found at short notice. Unless this was their real base and that other one was something else. I dunno.

Opening the door to the side of the pretty square room reveals exactly what I'd hoped for, a nice little bathroom, complete with bath. Oh I am in heaven right here. Time for a bath I think. I reach over and switch on the taps, getting the bath running, and some blood on the taps. Whoops, forgot about that.

I look around and grab some toilet roll. Wadding it up and dampening it, I return to the door handles of the room and bathroom and clean off the blood. I should really pay more attention to the fact I was making a bloody mess.

Ah shit.

I pick up my sabre from where I'd left it leant against the wall and wipe off the blood stains there. I'm stood blinking at the bloody remains of the tissue in my hands and frowning. It wasn't so long that I'd be trying to drink this stuff. Now I'm back to more solid foods. This is just all new still to me and although I seem to be coping well, I just don't seem to be able to get a grip on some things.

Mainly what the hell is it with me and going against all the rules and stereotypes? I fell for Colt as a vampire and he fell in return. I blew that by not repressing my true nature. Then I become a werewolf and discover that I can't be with him, but I still want to be. Even though he's more likely to never want to see me again and would rather I die.

Then there's Soothing. I'm attributing my attraction to him as the first handsome guy to show me a little kindness and my initial lashing out at him because I was scared that I liked him. Now I suddenly had a slightly better understanding of hormonal women. Emotions are just that little bit stronger, especially when you're not used to them.

I move back into the bathroom and start washing my hands. I don't really want to bathe in a bath of bloody water. I want to soak and think. Or bollocks to that, I want to soak and not think.

He gave me the cold shoulder right after I started being snotty about Lawrence and him kissing. I mean, it was only a quick kiss from what I remember seeing, well, I don't remember an awful lot in the part where Lawrence jumps and kisses him, then I'm in front of the pair seeing red.

I stop the bath and strip off, sliding my body into the warm water with a contented sigh. My clothing thrown on the bed in the room and a towel conveniently hidden behind the door. My sabre in the bathroom with me, can't be too careful. It's not like I'm likely to be attacked, but I don't want someone fucking about with it and accidently hurting themselves. It's careless antics like that, that get you put on TV shows like 'world's worst parent' because someone's kid wanted to play knights for real and the other kid ends up in A&E,

Why is it, whenever you 'know' you can't do or have something, it makes it that much harder to deal with or let go? I'd let my old world go without a second thought, thinking that I'd be back one day. Then now I'm stuck with a choice that it's pretty obvious I'd be much better off here. I only have to deal with the feelings I have for Soothing and maybe they'll just pass?

Plus I do have new responsibilities now, that much I learnt from Colt. A werewolf's life has a duty to gaia and fighting the corruption of the wyrm. The black spirals were down a member and the werewolves were up a member now. Wait, no they're down two members, I keep forgetting about Rain. Shit, that's something I hadn't thought of. I know I have to keep an eye on my little bro, but he'll also have a fuckton of knowledge about the black spirals that the garou don't have, just like I have a large amount of knowledge about the vampires. Knowledge that I hope I never need to use. I don't want vampires getting into this world. We have enough shit to deal with. I wonder how long I've got before I need to decide which world I have to stay in or if the choice will be made for me. No matter which way I look at it, I'm going to miss someone.

There's a knock at my door. "Alex? It's Wyrmripper, I'm comin in."

Oh fuck, now what have I done?

"Errr, I'm in the bath at the moment."

"That's fine." I hear the door open.

Well fuck, I guess I should get out and see what I've done wrong this time. At least, that's what I think until the door to the bathroom opens and Wyrmripper waltz's in.

"Don't need to get out, you ain't got owt I'm interested in staring at." he smirks.

I roll my eyes and grunt. "As you wish. What's up bossman?"

"Dude, did you really cut Heart?"

I blink. "Well, yeah.... Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt him so bad." I wince, looks like I should have been a bit more careful.

"Fuck that! It's been ages since anyone clipped the little shit! And you did it with my shield, I'm so proud!" he grins.

I just stare with my jaw open. Did I miss the memo here? The boss guy is pleased about me slicing open one of his guys and the shield was his?!

"Well, that was it mainly. Wanted to know if it was true and to embarrass you cos I know you get all boned up checking these out." he flexes his thick arms again and I scowl. He caught me off guard last time, my mood isn't good enough for him to do it again.

"Aww, you don't seem so happy to see me this time. Something on your mind gayboi?"

"Plenty at the moment bossman, however I should really point out something if Soothing hasn't already."

"What's that?"

"I'm good because I've had a few more years practice than Heart. Lawrence has had more than a few years practice and I know he's faster than me."

"So you're saying that he's a potential threat even though he's your friend?"

"... I guess I am, yeah."

"What the fuck did Lawrence do to get Riyada back?"

I look away, but then back at him. He's my boss now, I have to tell him the truth. So I tell him exactly what happened before the station and at the station.

"Wow. That's some ballsy shit there. Certainly a quick thinker when he wants to be. I'm glad he was telling the truth."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I already asked him what happened, you just confirmed it. He repeated what you said word for word, except the part where he kissed Soothing that you seemed to have left out."

I blush and look away. That wasn't exactly something I thought needed to be broadcasted.

"Look, it ain't any of my business until it fucks with pack business or the law. But you can't do the cold shoulder shit with each other or you will force me to take more drastic measures. Get your shit together Alex, you're the one who's got an extra ten years experience on us all. Try using some of it."

"You're right. I'll get a handle on it."

"Good, cos the only garou your ass belongs to is me right now, and no I don't mean in a gay way before you get your hopes up. When I bite you on the ass, you won't have that much of it left."

I cringe in the tub, the thought of him ripping me a new one suddenly hitting a whole new level from the sexual to the honest to god painful.

"Now get rested up, tomorrow your training kicks into high gear. We ain't got any more cotton wool for you Alex, time to earn you pelt." and he gets up and walks on out, shutting the doors behind him.