Fighting, Anaya Phoenix [best affordable ebook reader .TXT] 📗

Words, human expression, and contact were hard for him to grasp. But over the years he’d managed to grasp human contact, that hug was proof of that. It took him a couple of years to nail basic words like ‘mom’, ‘dad’, ‘wolf’, and ‘pack’. I folded my arms and cocked my hip against the entrance of the cave, watching as everyone had fun. I heard Vixie saddle up next to me but didn’t look at her.

“This is nice.” Was all she said before walking in and looking around. I bit my lip and watched as she watched everyone play happily. She had been robbed of her childhood, and I just needed her to at least enjoy it. She didn’t look that impressed with the surrounding and then suddenly everything changed. Her face split into the biggest smile I’d seen on her face in a while and she did a cartwheel before laughing and doing two more. Louie ran in, his polar bear fluffy and a bright white, to go directly to her and tackle her to the ground. Her laughter and his soft roars mingled with the rest of the sounds in the air and I knew that tonight I would be able to sleep easy.

 

                He curled up behind me, surrounding me with his scent and enveloping me so tightly I was afraid I’d drown in him. It wasn’t a death I’d mind though. He nuzzled his nose into my neck and took a deep warm breath.

“I’m sorry I forgot. I came back from training and was exhausted, but I went as soon as-“ His hands tightened on my waist and he turned me around, his lips slamming into mine and demanding entrance. I shuddered as I gave it to him and wrapped my entire body around his. It was a while before we broke apart and when we did our breathing filled the room.

“Thank you for remembering. I knew you were busy and tired, but you still managed to come. I’m sorry for snapping at you, I should’ve known you wouldn’t do something so invasive and cruel to the triplets it’s just… Maddock gets easily excited and when he’s like that… It just would’ve sucked if you hadn’t done what you’d done but got his hopes up so high.” There was pain in his face and in his voice that he was trying to mask, and seeing it broke me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and brought his head close to my chest, taking a deep breath. I felt his body slowly relax in my arms and I felt his shoulders begin to shake as he sobbed into my shirt. I said nothing and did nothing, only held him and breathed and, in that moment, it was enough.

 

                In the morning I woke up to find the little ones and their parents snuggled up on the grass and sleeping. I sighed deeply and went about gently waking them up, knowing the little ones to get a little too rowdy if woken up aggressively. They all got up and their parents threw sad, apologizing looks at me while they picked up their young and took them to their respective rooms. With more sadness than I thought I would have and a wave of my hand the training room returned to being exactly that. The rest of the victors came in and looked at the room and I could see the sadness and slight anger that was there. It was fair. It was a shit hand we were dealt, but we couldn’t fold.

“It’s time for intensive training. Call them to separate rooms. Good luck.” Was all I said. Before going off to the wolf intensive training area. Slowly they came to me looking thoroughly confused, but prepared for anything. Good, my wolf whispered softly as I folded my arms behind my back and stood firmly. I waited until they were all there and didn’t think too much about how little there were.

“Today you being intensive training. You will be reporting here for daily training three times a day for three hours at a time. After each session you are to check in with me, either mentally through the established link or personally, with your hours and progress. These rooms were designed by the gods, and are simulated through a link I will give you directly to Lupa. In the link your body will be transported to Eternal, where your individual training room will be. The room will give you the results and I expect you to report those back to me truthfully and in a timely manner. Any questions?”

“Any questions? You’re just handing us off to the Gods now?” Some male said, his anger sparking off everyone else’s.

“I’m not handing you off to anyone. I’m sending you on your way to training. This is crunch time and there’s only one of me and about a couple thousand of you. Mathematically, logically, and in every way you could think of that just doesn’t work. Any other questions that won’t earn you extra training time?” They all stayed quiet and I nodded before opening the link and extending it to them.

“You now have a direct line to your own training room, because that is the way you’ll be on the field. Yes, we’ll be there with you but no one’s job is to protect anyone but themselves. In these training rooms you can’t get hurt, but each time you die in the simulation will be recorded and you will have to start over. The more times you die in the simulation the more time you’ll have to spend in your room. The three hours that you spend in there is three hours of successful and efficient time, but if you spend an hour of that time failing and dying then you will be in there for four hours. Does everybody understand?” I heard soft mumbles and mutters and nodded.

“When trying to gain access to these rooms, you must simply open the link on your end. Good luck, and remember to make those hours as efficient and successful as possible.” With that and a wave of my hand they all went to their training rooms and I took a deep breath. It would either be easier or harder from here, it all depended on how much they’d managed to retain from training and how much they were utilizing.

 

                We checked the guns and protective wear while they were gone, making sure they weren’t defective and were as strong as we needed them to be. Which proved to be extremely fun, especially when I was able to shoot Shay as many times as needed.

“It’s for science!”

“Yer a right cunt, ye know that!?” His voice got deeper and pulled more on his brogue when he was angry, and electrocuted.

“I said it’s for science, now stand still!” I giggled as I mock aimed at him. The glare he threw at me would’ve stopped me in my tracks, had it been serious. Instead it only made me giggle more intensely until Ursula shot me in the butt. I was getting ready to turn on her, once I’d let the electricity run its course since nobody wanted to tell me how to extract it, when Carmen popped up in front of me. With a startled shriek I punched her in the shoulder, narrowing my eyes on her as she gripped it and hissed in pain.

“What’d you do that for?” She grumbled, squeezing and rubbing her bruised shoulder.

“What’d I do that for? What are you doing back here? It’s only been two hours!”

“I finished!” She shrugged and then winced before peeking at her shoulder under her shirt.

“Excuse me?”

“I finished it. My room went white and it said ‘results recorded’ and then I was here and you punched me. Which really hurt, by the way.”

“No, no you don’t understand. The minimum you need to be in there is three hours. The room can’t do that, can’t finish, unless you’ve met that requirement.” She answered with a shrug and I narrowed my eyes, and opened my mouth to say something when I heard Leo roar.

“Dude what the fuck?!” A female lion said, doubled over and clutching her stomach.

“You scared the shit out of me. What’s happening?” His brows furrowed and he looked to me. I was beginning to open my mouth and tell him I had no fucking clue what was happening before two wolves popped in one after the other. Filly sidled next to me, both our mouths agape and both of us equally confused.

“What the-“ Then, one after the other, they all started coming back. They looked as confused as we did, but I was willing to bet that we were, at least, eight times more confused. When a small crowd had gathered of assorted shifters I decided it was time to question them. We’d told them to stay in the big training room until we had figured out what to say to them. I made a beeline towards Carmen and she narrowed her eyes slightly, her body gearing up.

“What… happened?” Was all I could manage to get out and she snorted before rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.

“We teleported to the training room and I was alone and suddenly we were in a forest and there were people shooting at me. So I took cover and I realized that I’d gotten a weapon, somehow, and was wearing a shit ton of protective gear.” She shrugged then and stopped talking. I furrowed my brow and cocked my head.

“You- Ok? What happened after that?”

“I did what I was trained to do, what we’ve spent the past five months learning.” She made it sound so simple. Sighing I opened her training information and took in a sharp breath.

“In an hour and a half you managed to take down a highly trained tactical squad. That’s 50-100 highly trained, highly dangerous humans, armed to the teeth with heavy artillery humans.” I opened my eyes and her cheeks were slightly pink.

“Let’s just say humans and I, never mind my wolf, don’t get along. I get a little nasty around them.”

“A little nasty? The bots were torn apart by hand-“

“I ran out of bullets.”

“Choked-“

“Couldn’t get to them all by hand.”

“And pummeled under the earth.”

“Now see, I was using too much of my energy fighting with air so I just took the rest of them out in one fell swoop.” I stared in admiration until she squirmed slightly.

“You didn’t even retain any injuries. Your gear doesn’t show any sign of harm.”

“I only let myself get hit during training because I feel bad. The others try so hard, so I typically let them get one or two lands on me.” My mouth dropped open and I leaned against one of the boulders near me.

“So you’re telling me… that you’re some sort of super soldier and you’ve just been playing nice down here?” One side of her mouth kicked when I said super soldier and she shrugged.

“I’m here to fight for my freedom, and the freedom of everyone else down here, Luna. So is everybody else. We’ve all got backstories, we’re all fighting for someone or something. We’re all efficient learners. Keep that in mind next time you think we’re all helpless pups.” She watched me intently, her head cocked and a slight amused smile on her face. I was silent for a while before reality hit me and I stood up straight.

“Have you all just been fucking with me? Letting me train you and get all stressed out for literally nothing?” I saw her lips quiver as she tried to hold in her laughter, she even did a small cough. My nostrils flared and I kicked off the boulder and stormed away from her.

“We didn’t do it on purpose! You just looked so happy and cute, maybe even peaceful, when you were training us. We didn’t want to break your little heart!” I flipped her off at the fake sincerity and her laughter while