Chapter 24: The Combat Exercise
"What?! What do you mean you wont participate?" D asked, his mouth agape at Val’s declaration.
"I said what I meant D, due to some...personal reasons I wont be able to enter the trials with you all, but I’ll still help train you."
"Well yippie, I guess its not a total betrayal to all of us after all." D said as he tried to get passed Val and Nashoba, he was done with this awful conversation.
He began walking off to the direction of the exit and they simply watched him go before Val yelled to him, "Remember! Training starts tomorrow!"
D stopped, turned around, and threw up a thumbs up and kept walking.
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The next day came without incident, as much as D wanted to take his anger out on someone or something, nothing had happened in between when he last saw Val and Nashoba.
Today’s training session would be out in the old Black Woods on the edge of the island. D, Max, and Roxanne had limited experience with this place D thought. The only time he’d been in these woods was when he’d met Scarlett for the first time.
The scent of the trees as they walked to the training ground was that of a sweet oakwood smell, most likely from them breaking twigs and branches as they stepped through.
"Are we sure this is the right place?" Roxanne asked with a gulp, obviously not accustomed to being in the woods.
"Yeah, I’m pretty sure she said the woods on the eastern side of the island." D said, looking at the map on his V-band to make sure they’d taken the right path.
"You’re only ’pretty sure’? That’s not very convincing." Max added with a small chuckle.
Just then a crisp whistle rang out to the left of the group and they all crooned their heads over to see who it was from. Val was standing atop a small tree she had climbed, a few paces away from the group.
She dropped down from the tree in front of the group as she said, "If I were a villain you’d all be dead by now. You need to be prepared for anything out here." She dusted off the training outfit she was wearing, it was a crop top with a constricting sports bra underneath, and black leggings with sneakers. It looked more like she’d be going to the gym than helping them survive the deadliest trial of their lives.
"This way, Nashoba hates it when I’m late for things." She began walking in the direction the group had been going. After a few more minutes of walking in silence the group came to a large circle of light sand in the middle of the forest with wooden bars all around it. Like some sort of medieval wrestling ring.
Nashoba stood with his back leaning on the ring with his shirt off, shorts on, and his long hair tied back. He got up to greet his friends with a round of high fives and fist bumps.
"Alright, I know D had missed our last meeting so I’ll go over what we’ll be doing here today." Val said as she jumped over the wooden bars of the ring. She walked into the center of the lightly sandy arena.
"In the trials there’s typically a combat exam, a written exam, and a team exam. Today we’re going over the combat exam."
D ears almost perked up at the word combat as he watched Val from beyond the wooden bars.
"Typically the combat exam has you face off in one on one duels till someone is defeated, gravely injured, or...dead. Obviously we’re hoping for the first one."
She got into a boxing stance and began facing off with an imaginary opponent with a bit of shadow boxing. D who’d been forcefully taught how to box by his father watched her form with a concentrated gaze, she was pretty good.
She stopped throwing punches and turned to her friends as she said, "D you’re up first and your opponent will be me!"
D hopped over the wooden bars and dropped into the arena, taking off his shirt and leaving it on the bars. He approached Val and with each step his body fortified into a boxing stance not too dissimilar to her own.
He shrugged and stretched his shoulders, shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and cracked his neck. He was ready to take his friend down, regardless if she was a girl or not. He wanted to win.
Nashoba raised his V-band and played a mock ’Ding’ sound to signal the start of the match. Val instantly fell into her own shadow, D had expected her to do something like that however and immediately turned and hopped away from his own shadow.
She came out of the shadow on the ground behind him arms first, obviously hoping to grab and take out his legs first. D kicked a bit of sand at her to disorient her, the sand hit her and she screamed and fell back into the shadow fully.
A long few moments passed as D stood inside of the arena seemingly alone, he couldn’t remove his shadow from the equation so he kept in view. He circled it and waited for Val to appear when she suddenly charged him from the edge of the arena.
He didn’t have time to fully turn and was struck in the side with a hook, and then almost struck in the face with a jab but he managed to block it in time. He full body kicked her in the torso and she hopped backwards away from his grabbing her stomach with a grunt.
Those blows were enough to charge up D’s own powers with Val’s shadow ability, no doubt draining her of some of her Glow. Val knew with every blow her powers would grow weaker and D’s would grow stronger for a time. She had to end this quickly.
They circled each other for a few moments, neither one of them making a move against the other when a shadowy limb exploded from the sand and grabbed D by the ankle, pulling him into the air.