The academy bells tolled eight hollow notes, their echoes slithering through Arachis' fog-choked corridors like a dying man's last breaths. Drake dragged his battered body toward the dorms, each step sending fresh waves of fire through his abused muscles. Alexis matched his limping pace, the bastard actually whistling.
"Move any slower and I'll mistake you for a corpse," Alexis said, flicking Drake's ear.
"Fuck off," Drake growled. His entire body screamed from the day's brutal drills, his mind still haunted by tedious academic lectures as well as the Watcher's charred remains.
At the dormitory fork, Alexis turned toward the elite students' wing. "Try not to sleep through another massacre, yeah?"
Drake flipped him off with a trembling hand and stumbled into his room. The door clicked shut. His boots thudded to the floor. His face hit the pillow—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three razor-sharp raps.
"If that's Alexis, I'll gut you," Drake mumbled into the sweat-stained fabric.
"On your feet."
That voice—cold as a grave in winter—sent ice water flooding Drake's veins. He rolled over to see Instructor Leo filling his doorway, backlit by the hall's sickly glow. The man's arms were crossed, his left foot tapping an impatient rhythm that matched Drake's suddenly racing heartbeat. Those obsidian eyes offered no mercy.
"Where—?" Drake croaked.
Leo didn't blink.
---
Five minutes later, Drake stood shivering in training leathers as Leo's calloused hand clamped his shoulder. Then—
The world lurched.
Drake's knees hit gravel. Cold night air slapped his face. The dorm was gone. The courtyard was gone. They stood atop the armory roof, Arachis' spires clawing at the starless sky.
"You—teleported us?!" Drake choked, stomach heaving.
Leo's snort was barely audible over the howling wind. "I moved. Your eyes just couldn't keep up."
Before Drake could protest, Leo grabbed him again, and the world streaked into blurred motion — not teleportation but perception warped speed honed by years of training.
This time, Drake fought the nausea. He focused. And he saw the truth: No dramatic crouch. Just a micro-twitch of Leo's calves before they catapulted upward. Three stories cleared in a single bound, Leo's free hand grazing a drainpipe for balance—tap. His boots kissed slate tiles with less sound than a falling hair.
Drake's stomach revolted. Leo didn't slow.
Across the rooftops they flew, Leo's boots touching each surface once—tap—before kicking off. His cloak didn't flutter. It rippled, cutting the wind like a blade. Below, Sentinel patrols marched in oblivious squares. Leo threaded their blind spots like smoke.
A final leap—down—into the academy's abandoned underbelly. Drake's boots crunched gravel as Leo released him before a rusted hatch half-buried in weeds.
"Breathe," Leo ordered.
Drake vomited between his boots.
---
Leo pried the hatch open with one hand. Dank air rushed up, reeking of machine oil, old blood, and something sharp—like lightning about to strike.
"Welcome," Leo said, "to my sanctuary."
As Drake descended the ladder, his boots hit stained concrete—
—and his breath caught.
The chamber below wasn't some crumbling ruin. It was a temple of violence. Racks of weapons—not training tools, but killers' toys—littered the wall. A curved dagger with a serrated spine. A chain whip coiled like a sleeping serpent. Training dummies, their straw guts bursting from precision cuts—throat, femoral artery, kidney.
At the center, a sunken sparring ring, its floor black with old blood and newer sweat. To his left, a dented tin kettle steamed on a portable furnace with a framed photo hanging above it: young Leo, barely twenty, standing beside a broad-shouldered man with piercing eyes. But now he noticed two others in the faded image: a stern-faced Winston unchanged by decades, and a young woman with warm eyes and a confident smile.
"Who is that?" Drake asked.
Leo's back stiffened. "No story. Just a photo." His tone warned against further questions.
Leo tossed Drake a canteen of bitter, Aether-spiked liquid. "Drink. Then step into the ring."
The liquid burned like fire through his throat, but within seconds the ever-present ache in Drake's bones dulled to a tolerable throb.
"Why did you bring me here?" Drake asked as he felt the relief course through him.
"What else?" Leo began as he poured the steaming water into a cup. "To train," he concluded.
"You said you wouldn't train me anymore. Why the change?" Drake asked cautiously as he took another sip of the bitter concoction.
"That was for eavesdroppers," Leo said, stirring his tea. "Winston would have my head if I really stopped." A shadow crossed his face at the mention of Winston's wrath.
Leo's gaze turned serious. "Earlier, when we sparred with swords, I wasn't just testing your skill."
Drake asked, "Then what were you doing?"
"Evaluating you." Leo crossed his arms. "And here's the verdict: you're weak."
Drake's grip tightened on the canteen.
"And talentless," Leo added casually, as if commenting on the weather.
Drake's jaw clenched, but he didn't argue. He knew it was true.
Leo continued, "But you're resilient. You take hits and keep standing. That's something." He leaned in. "And in the world we're heading into, survival isn't about strength—it's about not dying."
Drake exhaled slowly. "So, what's the plan?"
"I'm going to teach you perception," Leo said. "How to read an enemy before they move. How to avoid fatal strikes. And when to run the hell away."
Drake blinked. "That's it? Just... run?"
Leo smirked. "You think warriors win wars? No. Cowards do. Because they live long enough to learn." He tapped Drake's forehead again. "Tonight, is just the beginning. You'll learn to see the fight before it happens—and when you can't, you'll learn how to disappear."
Drake swallowed. "And if I can't?"
Leo's expression darkened. "Then you die. And Winston will have my head for wasting his time."
---
For hours that felt like days, Leo hammered perception into Drake's bones with fists and fury.
First strike: Leo's left jab feinted high. Drake flinched right—
CRACK. Leo's knee shattered Drake's ribs with brutal efficiency.
"You reacted to what you expected," Leo growled, "not what I did."
Second round: Drake watched Leo's shoulders, caught the minute twitch—
Too slow. Leo's fist blurred. Drake barely moved, but almost wasn't enough. Knuckles grazed his temple, sending stars exploding across his vision as he crashed to the mat.
"Better," Leo admitted, standing over Drake's wheezing form. "But speed means nothing if you can't see the strike coming."
By midnight, Drake's nose was a ruined mess, his left eye swollen shut, his lips split and bleeding. Leo's strikes had been precise enough to cause agony without permanent damage.
Drake spat a mouthful of blood onto the stained concrete. "Why... this... extreme?"
Leo crouched, gripping Drake's hair to force eye contact. "To burn it into you." His free hand tapped Drake's forehead hard enough to hurt. "Any means necessary."
As Drake struggled to breathe through the pain, Leo's voice dropped to a deathbed whisper. "Winston had... a feeling before he left." His gaze flickered to the photograph. "Blood's coming. And when it does?" A humorless smile. "The strong die first. Only the cunning survive."
He tossed Drake another vial. "Rest. Tomorrow's worse."
Drake groaned. "How?"
In the guttering lantern light, Leo's grin was the last thing Drake saw before darkness took him—
"Because tomorrow, I stop pretending you're worth the effort."