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PE was weird. On the first week, Mrs. Charon told us to put our scythes down and listen to her. It took her two classes to go through all the safety measures before showing us how to fight. Normally, we should have learned this in semester two, and not too extensively, either. She didn’t feel comfortable that the new Headmaster was making her teach it in semester one. She didn’t believe we were ready. Also, she thought it was more important for us to learn how to teleport without the teleportation devices than to fence with our very real, very sharp scythes. On the second week, she asked us to put our scythes down again, and threw us each a stick with another stick tied to it. The new toys barely resembled our scythes.
“We’re going to try with these for now.”
“Were these… things approved by Headmaster Morningstar?” asked Merrit, holding the stick away from him, as if it carried the plague.
Professor Charon shot him a murderous look. “This is my class, Mr. Castegny, I decide how to run it. Do you have a problem with that?”
Merrit shrugged, unfazed. He was one of the few students who agreed with most of the changes my father was implementing. I’d always disliked him, and now I knew why. He sucked.
“All right, I want you to hold the sticks like you hold your scythes, and… I’ll just pair you up.”
It was a beautiful Tuesday morning, and the weather was holding up well. With a little luck, we’d be able to have PE outside the whole month of September. I took a deep breath in, filling my lungs with the crisp mountain air. Paz and GC were a few feet away from me, and even though I couldn’t touch them or talk to them, at least I saw them every day, in almost every class. I was feeling particularly positive today. Sariel had finally answered my texts, and even though he hadn’t spilled his secrets yet, at least we could chat about meaningless stuff. Klaus had added his boyfriend, Joel, to our group chat, and promised the guy was safe and wouldn’t tell on us. We hadn’t made any progress, but at least we hadn’t walked into trouble, either. Yet. I’d have thought Headmaster Morningstar would monitor our messages too, but he probably wasn’t tech savvy enough for that. Silly me. He didn’t need to be tech savvy. He just needed to hire a powerful mage, and the fun would be over. First, he needed to catch on to the fact that the students weren’t using the free wi-fi for homework alone. Guess that’s what happens when you’re nearly immortal and obsessed with reaping for the past six centuries. You lose touch with reality. I just hoped no one felt the need to tell him about the huge crater in his plan too soon.
“Pazuzu and Francis,” Professor Charon started pairing us up. “GC and Caspian, Mila and Merrit.”
Shit. I knew I could kick his ass with my stick, on one condition: that he didn’t use his mage powers. I’d learned some sweet moves from Valentine the first and only time we’d dueled.
“I’m going to show you the basics. Feet apart, make sure you’re well-grounded and centered, shoulders square. The blade is for hitting, obviously, and the handle is for blocking. Try not to hurt each other, okay?”
“How could they hurt each other when you gave them sticks, Scylla?” Valentine landed next to Professor Charon and tucked his wings on his back. His black cloak whooshed around him, ominously. He slammed his scythe on the ground, and the earth trembled subtly. Lately, he’d made a hobby out of reminding everyone how powerful he was. Every now and then, just to keep things interesting, and the students and professors under control, he’d cause a mini earthquake. “What is this?”
“Headmaster…” Mrs. Charon tried to explain herself, but Valentine silenced her with a flick of his wrist.
“Rhetorical question. I’ll tell you what it is. A bad joke.” He turned to us. “Throw away those pathetic sticks and pick up your scythes, Reapers.”
Here we go. I had a feeling the infirmary would be out of beds soon. In the next fifty minutes, to be more exact. I grabbed my scythe and held onto it tightly. I didn’t want to be paired with Merrit, anymore. I was afraid I might actually hurt him. But if I was paired with GC, Paz, or Francis, wouldn’t that be worse?
“Mila, step forward. Let’s show them how it’s done.”
So, you want to beat me in front of everyone? Weaken their trust in the prophecy? That wasn’t a bad plan, come to think of it. I did as I was told. Corri flappity-flapped around my head three times, worried and agitated. She’d seen the result of Valentine challenging me to a duel before. It hadn’t been pretty. No cuts, but he’d left some dark purple bruises on my legs and arms.
“I don’t like this, Mistress. I don’t like this at all,” she whispered.
“Shh! Go sit on Paz’s shoulder. I need to focus.” The last thing I needed was a hysterical pixie to tell me how dangerous it was to fight my father in front of the VDC. If he really wanted to prove a point, then I could easily imagine him aiming to leave more than just bruises. Lucky me I wasn’t afraid of blades.
I grounded myself and held the scythe with both hands. I felt it buzz and tremble, ready for action. The blade didn’t glow red because there was no call for reaping, but the handle knew blood would soon be spilled. Valentine stepped in front of me, confident and relaxed. He made the first move, and I blocked him easily. This was just the warm-up. He advanced, I backed up, he attacked, I blocked. When he took a step back and smiled at me, I realized he wanted me to take charge. With a grunt, I tried to cut him on the cheek. He dodged. It was a dance. I attacked again and again, and he dodged or blocked me every time. I wasn’t making any progress, and he soon started acting like he was bored. When I least expected it, he attacked me viciously, and I barely had time to raise my scythe and stop his blade inches away from my face. I pushed with all my might, preparing myself for the next blow. He was stronger than me. Physically. It wasn’t only that I didn’t yet know enough moves to take him by surprise, but that he was simply taller, bulkier, and stronger than me. When he put all his force into it, I could barely block him and push him away. My lower back was already protesting, and the muscles in my arms and calves started burning dully.
“Good demonstration, Mila. Thank you.”
What? I was confused. That was it? He’d only wanted to put on a show, not finish me and humiliate me?
“If I may, Scylla, I’d like to redo the pairs.”
Mrs. Charon pursed her lips. She was silent for a moment, but when he started calling out names, she stepped up and dared to confront him.
“With all due respect, Headmaster Morningstar, this is my class. I’ve already established the pairs. And I strongly believe that it’s better for the VDC to start with the… pathetic sticks, as you called them. It’s safer this way. I’d like to teach them a few basic moves, first. I see that Mila is way ahead, and that’s marvelous. She can help me make sure we don’t fill up the infirmary with bleeding students. Especially since semester one should have been about teleportation, not scythe fighting.” That last part had nothing to do with the rest of her speech, but she didn’t want to miss a single occasion to remind Morningstar he’d changed the curriculum for no reason at all and made it worse.
“I see.” He nodded, his brows furrowed. He looked calm and patient on the outside, but I knew him better. He was boiling with anger. Okay, maybe not anger. He thought few people deserved his fiery, unrelenting anger, so he often chose to show annoyance, instead. In this case, he was acting like Professor Charon was a yappity dog that wouldn’t shut up, and he was detachedly pissed off. “Mrs. Charon, let me make a few things clear, and once I do and everyone understands the part they need to play, let’s do our best not to repeat this tiresome conversation. One, this is the Violent Death Cabal. They will not fight with sticks. You want to use sticks, do so with the Merciful Death Cabal, or the Neutral Death Cabal. But don’t force my Violent Death students and my Righteous Death students to play with toy scythes in a sandbox. Two, I thought I explained to you at the beginning of this year why we’re studying scythe fighting and not teleportation. Didn’t I? I’ll do you this one favor and explain again, this time for all present to understand.” He turned to us. “For teleportation, you have your devices. Keep using them until Mrs. Charon can make time for two or three classes on how to teleport on your own in semester two. Learning how to fight is much more important than learning how to zap yourselves from one place to another when you already have a perfectly good way to do it.”
“But why do we have to learn how to fight?” GC asked. “When we graduate and twenty-one of us become Grim Reapers, the old generation will retire, and if we have a few cases when they refuse to retire, yes, we’re going to challenge them to a duel and take them out, hopefully. But other than that, why do we need to be super good at figh
ting?”
My darling GC had just asked all the right questions in one breath. Our eyes were on Morningstar. The Headmaster pursed his lips, smiled ever so subtly, and nodded mysteriously.
“You never know when a war breaks out and you’re sent to the front lines.” And with that, he turned on his heels, spread his wings, and flew off.
What war? Whose war? Silence fell over the PE class. We were all tense, confused, and our questions had just doubled in number. Mrs. Charon smiled forcefully.
