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Chapter Six

All sound falls away; the only thing I can hear is the rhythmic pounding of my fists as they drive into the bag. The swords on my arms buzz, and I know that they want to be played with too; I also know that they would destroy the bag, so they're going to have to wait for the moment until I've burned off enough energy that I can spar with someone.

In order to burn off some of my extra magic, I'm putting small amounts into my hands, using it to increase the strength of my hits; I'm also using it to help me move faster and with more accuracy. It's very slowly starting to take the edge off, but it's not enough.

"Do you want to do some practice with your blades?" Kysen asks me.

I nod and warn him, "Sure, but I haven't burned off nearly enough magic yet."

Kysen nods, "That's okay; fighting with your blades should help you. They use your magic to sustain themselves, so although it won't help massively, it will help to a certain degree."

My eyebrows rise, "Well shit, I hadn't thought of that. Are you sure you can keep up?"

He returns my grin with one of his own, "Bring it Sage."

I chuckle as I follow him over to a spare near the door that we came through, and without any preamble, he charges, his sword drawn. Instead of panicking, I dodge out of the way of the blow and call on my own blades, feeling the familiar weight settle in my hands and making me smile. We fight, sweat dripping down both of our brows as we don't hold back the clang of swords echoing through the room. Kysen is a worthy opponent and is giving me a proper workout, as I have to use more of my magic to increase my speed so I don't end up decapitated.

We've been fighting for around half an hour when I suddenly become aware of someone new in our space. My back is to the door, but as soon as I sense the person walk through, I hold my sword up to block the blow from Kysen and turn to throw my other blade at the intruder, who shocks the shit out of me when he simply plucks it out of the air, I start to call on my magic when it suddenly fizzles out as I realise the intruder is familiar.

"Sage, it's good to see you finally practicing with swords. I seem to remember that you thought it was a waste of time when I trained you," Cain says, completely casually as if he hasn't just walked through Erin's shield or nearly had his head taken off.

"Cain Patrick?" Levi questions, sounding confused.

I can't really say I blame him because what the fuck.

"You're human," I reply to him, thoroughly confused as to what the fuck I'm seeing because that is definitely Cain Patrick, smirking at me and looking strangely proud as he spins one of my blades in his hands. The same Cain Patrick who was with me in my human life and gave me vital skills that helped to keep me safe.

Cain chuckles, "I am far from human, and I never have been."

"I guess that would explain why he was so hard to fucking find on Earth," Maverick mutters, clearly putting things together faster than I am.

To add to my utter confusion at the situation that I now find myself in, Knot and Ghost are greeting him like they know him, and they certainly aren't behaving like he's a threat, which, to be honest, I'd never think he was anyway, at least not to me. I suppose it's a good sign that they're trusting of him. At least it gives me a good indication that he's not here to harm us.

"Would anyone care to explain why there is such a big deal that our combat teacher is in here, apart from the obvious?" Cole exclaims, throwing his hands in the air dramatically, making my lips twitch despite the situation and pulling me from my thoughts.

"Also, why the hell would you think that he's human because he's kicking off so much power, there isn't any mistaking that he's a supernatural," Kysen adds, from somewhere behind me.

Cole's words suddenly snap through the fog of shock in my brain, and still keeping my eyes on Cain, I ask, "What the hell do you mean your combat teacher?"

"He's taught here for years. He disappears every now and again, sometimes for weeks, before popping back up and training us again," Ty replies, answering my question.

"How come none of you realised who he was?" I hear Kai ask; I'm assuming Erin and her team.

"Well, for one, no one has seen a picture, apart from maybe a blurry one, and it's not like he introduced himself as Cain Patrick," Jett points out.

"That wouldn't have been very smart knowing that you came from the Earth Realm," Cain agrees with a smile.

"How the fuck did you get through my shield? I didn't even feel you move through it?" Erin demands.

I raise my eyebrow at him, "That's something that I'd like to know as well, one of the many."

Cain's expression becomes serious as he nods, "Yes, I'm sure that there are many questions that you have, and I will aim to answer those that I can."

"That's a somewhat broad and yet vague answer," I reply.

He shrugs, "Yep. Anyway, I believe that you got some correspondence from Nyx, and she said that she'd be sending you help along the way?"

I nod, "Yes."

He points to himself with a grin, "Help."

"You're the help that Nyx has sent us?" Hunter asks.

"I'm the first of your help. I imagine that there will be more," Cain replies, a knowing glint in his eyes. Oh, he definitely knows more than he's letting on.

"You know Nyx?" Harry asks, and I can hear the skepticism in his voice, "What are you doing teaching here?"

"One, I had to make sure you and your Bonded were worthy; two, I had to keep an eye on Erin, and before that, I needed to build allies, train Sage, and wait."

"So, you knew who I was way back when my life was shit?" I ask, aware that my tone is confrontational, but I think it has the right to be. If he'd said something, at least I wouldn't have felt so fucking helpless all the damn time.

Cain's eyes fill with sadness, "I did. I was bound not to say anything though, and it's actually by pure fluke that I managed to find a loophole that allowed me to train you."

My intuition pings, "There are things you can't tell me now, isn't there? Big things?"

Cain meets my eyes and nods.

"Do you know, I would be more surprised if someone turned up and told us exactly what we need to know and answered all the questions that we had," Dash says drily, and there's a resounding sound of agreement.

Cain sighs, "I'm really sorry. I'd tell you everything if I could, but the Fates don't work that way."

I sigh and scrub a hand over my face, "Right, okay then, can you tell us what exactly you're here helping us with?"

"Yes, that I can tell you. For now, I'm here to help train you since the teachers here have lost their damn minds, although I am aware that it's not entirely their fault. If they were more careful, then it wouldn't have happened in the first place, but then again, the Fates deemed it, so it had to happen one way or another," the rant seems to catch not only us but him off guard too, because he takes a deep breath, pinches his nose and says, "anyway, I digress. I am also here to help you keep an eye on the teachers and headmaster here so that you have forewarning before anything happens and also hopefully so we can find the object that's being used to control them."

Jett speaks up, "So there is definitely something that is controlling them? It isn't someone doing it?"

"Well, it is kind of. Kronos is doing it through the object," Cain confirms, his top lip curling with distaste as shadows cross his eyes and his power level rises sharply before dipping again so quickly that I'm not sure I imagined it.

I glance at the others, but no one else seems to have noticed the substantial spike, so I don't bring it up now, but I am definitely going to be keeping a close eye on him. I have no idea what kind of supe he is, I don't even have a vague clue, and that power spike was crazy strong.

"Well, I guess the only thing left to do is get back to training?" Erin questions when everything stays quiet.

"How do you want to go forward with the training?" Levi asks Cain.

"You seemed to have a pretty good setup. I'd like to see where you all are since I haven't taught you all yet, so I need to get an idea of where you all are and how I can help you improve," Cain suggests.

My head is still reeling, I'm not going to deny it, but really, there's very little that I can do. He's here, and it is great to see him, but so soon after learning that my parents weren't actually my parents, it is a little bit too much. For now, I just want to spar, and I'm sure that I'll come back to it and ask all the questions that I can later.

"That sounds good," Levi agrees and then turns to look at all of us, "is everyone okay with that?" Everyone nods their agreement, and Levi adds, "Good, as you were then."

"Actually, I'd like to see where Sage's sword skills are now if that's okay?" Cain says, and when he turns to look at me, there's a hint of challenge in them.

That look throws me right back to the days before all this when he'd show up randomly to train me for a couple of weeks and then disappear again.

I smirk, "Bring it, old man."

Everyone has already gone back to their original places to begin sparring again, but I am aware that my guys are keeping a close eye on me.

"You need us at any point, Sage, then you yell, got it?" Maverick demands through the Bond Lines.

"Got it. Just a heads up though, Cain taught me everything that I know, and we've fought many times. He won't kill me, no matter how hard it looks like he's pushing me,"I reply, remembering how hard we used to fight.

"It concerns me that you said kill and not harm?"Levi questions, a growl evident in his voice.

"You can't train properly if you don't get a little bit hurt,"I reply and then give them a big grin; fighting against Cain is exactly what I need right now. He never went easy on me, and I'm hoping that's not going to have changed.

"Have you finished talking with your Bonded?" Cain asks me, raising his eyebrow and looking amused.

"How did you know I was talking to them?"

"Your face gave it away. You might want to work on that," Cain smiles as he spins one of Nyx's blades in his hands. Strangely enough, I don't mind him using it, which is curious.

"Are you going to talk or test me like I know you're dying to?" I question.

All joking and teasing stops as he comes at me using supernatural speed, and I barely manage to get out of the way using my own speed.

Damn, he's fast.

Our swords clang as we jump and spin, fighting as sweat beads on my brow and my one Nyx blade sings and buzzes as I push magic into it. I'm relatively relieved as well as surprised to see that I'm not the only one who's out of breath. It always used to irritate me how I would be sweating and huffing and puffing, but he would be absolutely fine. Of course, I now know that he is a supe, so fighting against human me would've been like fighting an ant.

I make the mistake of letting my thoughts distract and move out of the way of his blade a fraction of a second too late, and it nicks my side, only a small cut and not anything that I need to worry about. It does make me double my efforts though, and I fight even harder. I use my magic to propel myself up, and I'm shocked when he does the same. I quickly get my wits about me when he somehow manages to still charge and swing his sword at me just as well as he did on the floor.

"All you need to do is stop thinking about it so much and use your intuition. Your magic will naturally do what you want it to do so long as you don't overthink it," Cain says as he stops his attack in order to help me.

I nod, "Okay, while I know that makes sense, it's pretty hard for me to forget I'm floating eight feet off the damn ground."

He chuckles, "Come on now, think of all the advantages you'll have in battle if you can master this."

I raise my eyebrow, "Battle?"

"Battle, fight, same difference."

"No, it's really not but fine, I see your point," I concede.

"Do a couple of practice moves first; get used to how it feels. It's definitely more, um, floaty, I guess you could describe it," he starts to instruct, and I smirk. He ignores me completely as he continues, "So you need to learn how to balance that with your normal fighting technique; you'll most likely need to switch it up a bit. Once you've got the hang of it and you've learned to trust your magic it'll be as easy as fighting on the ground, but with some added benefits."

I nod. This is why I loved training with Cain. He never missed an opportunity to teach me something new and make sure I mastered it. I do as he suggested and take a couple of practice swings with my sword while I try to move with it as well. It is far from seamless, and it's easy to tell that I'm struggling.

"You're thinking about it too hard," Cain tells me, and I glance over at him to see him in the sitting position like he's sitting in a chair, except there is no chair.

I take a deep breath, "Yeah, I know it's not as easy as it seems, or at least you make it seem."

"It is, though Sage. You've just got to trust your magic, and you're good at that," he replies, knowledge in his eyes.

Rather than trying to get him to explain how he could possibly know that I am good at trusting my magic, I take another deep breath and close my eyes. I figure that if I can't see and move instinctively instead, that might help me to stop thinking about it so much. The fact is, I do trust my magic, and I am good at it, but it's that unknown darkness that lives deep within my magic that makes me nervous.

Trust.

That seems to be the thing that my magic is telling me, and it doesn't seem as wary about that Darkness as I am; I guess I should take comfort in that since it's closer to the Darkness than I am. I don't like not knowing.

I take another deep breath; there is no point dwelling on that now. Right now, I'm trying to get to grips with a new fighting technique, and that means that I need to trust my magic, as Cain says, and also like my magic is telling me to do.

Well, alright then.

Keeping my eyes closed still, I start to move. I'm wobbly at first but reasonably quickly get my bearings, and I find myself moving through the air with ease.

"Good job, I'm going to take it easy but I'm going to start to engage now," Cain says.

I open my eyes as I focus on trusting my instincts; Cain stays true to his word and takes it easy on me, but as soon as he realises that I'm keeping up and that I've actually got a pretty good grasp on it now, he picks up the pace, and I find myself having to trust my magic to help me move or I'm going to get sliced again and I don't want that to happen, especially not by one of my own blades.

I am by no means as good in the air as I am on the ground, and I know that Cain is holding back up here, but when I've got some practice in, it"s going to be a massive advantage if I can attack from the air. Not only that, but some of the guys can help me too.

"Alright, I'm calling it. We need to get a couple of hours of sleep in before we have to get up for lessons," Levi calls out, putting a stop to the sparring going on.

I try to lower myself to the floor like Cain does gently, but I'm a little bit clumsier in my descent, and I end up almost falling over.

"Smooth," Kai teases as he catches me and then holds me close.

"Shit up, I grin. "I don't know how I'm going to get up in a couple of hours. I'm exhausted in every way."

"I hear that," Erin agrees, stretching out her back with a groan.

"I know you're all tired but there's one more thing I need to talk to you about," Cain says as everyone begins to leave.

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