Fallen University: Year Three

Together.

The way it was always meant to be.

Chapter Ten

“Combat first thing in the morning. I thought he wasn’t trying to punish us.” Kingston pouted as we walked down to the gym the following day.

We were all still a little beat up from our time in the underworld, but we didn’t want to miss any more school than we already had.

“He put all of us in classes together,” I pointed out. “He’s definitely not trying to punish us. He’s trying to prepare us.”

As we walked inside the large training gym, Beedle greeted us with a grim nod. “Welcome back. You’re going to be learning group combat. Coordinated efforts.”

I glanced around at the other students, who were all working on solitary moves. “Something special just for us?”

Beedle’s mouth stretched into a flat smile. “Something like that. Come on.”

He arranged the five of us back-to-back in the center of the room, then blew his whistle. “Students—attack!”

“Wait, what?”

But my question was lost in the clamor of two dozen demon students rushing us. Many of them were more than happy to do so. All three of Sonja’s cronies were in this class, and they were all clearly burning with hatred. Nobody was going to be pulling any punches.

They had training swords and sticks.

We were unarmed.

Shit.

Kingston and Xero began throwing fireballs, Kai fought tooth and nail—literally—and Jayce shifted into his hellhound form to snap at the attackers. Panic swept over me as a set of claws nearly tore my eyes out.

Damn it, Piper! You have tools. Use them!

I shifted into the first thing that came to mind—the image of the person attacking me.

She paused. “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck?” I mimicked.

She narrowed her eyes and moved to attack again, and I called on my powers of persuasion. “You don’t want to hurt yourself, do you?”

She faltered, her swing missing me by a mile.

“Oh, get out of my way!” Sonja’s friend, the little blonde one named Kimi, shoved the other girl aside. “I’ve got no problem beating the shit out of myself if it means this bitch gets hurt.”

Damn. Vicious.

I quickly shifted again, assuming a different form, and Kimi went pale.

“You… you can’t do that,” she said, her voice trembling.

“I do whatever I want,” I said, mimicking Sonja’s voice and still channeling my persuasion. I felt bad about using the image of the dead girl in a fight, but not bad enough to let Kimi beat the shit out of me. “I run this place. The Custodians have a special position waiting for me. You’ll be my right hand—if you don’t fuck up.”

Kimi was trembling. She blinked, and energy crackled between her fingers. “No. You aren’t Sonja. You killed Sonja. Get the fuck out of her face!”

She threw her energy ball at my head.

Oops. That backfired.