I was in my Alex form when I arrived at the warehouse where I did most of my training now that I'd joined the Bouquet. The goal was to train my sword arts, not combat in general. This meant that training in a single warehouse within city limits was a reasonable thing to do—it wouldn't work if I wanted to use my dragon form.

While I could have fit, it wouldn't have left me with enough vertical space to maneuver, or at least do anything other than the draconic equivalent of an awkward, hunched shuffle.

Mr. Bones was there waiting for me, as was usual, but he wasn't alone this time. The other Guardian present, a Tier 4, was a man I'd already met a couple times before.

It was my original sword instructor, Bjorn. What is he doing here?

He gave me a little wave. "Hello, Alexis."

"...Hi."

I guess he's here to continue being my instructor? I probably told Mr. Bones or someone else that I started lessons with him at some point. So maybe they decided to hire him again on my behalf?

I wanted to ask, but I wasn't sure how to broach the subject—you know, the bit about me dropping off the map and landing in the news cycle as a suspected serial killer. Still not confirmed though.

I was no longer sure what my legal status was—you know, that sounds like something I should figure out. Probably sooner rather than later.

Regardless, I was happy to see Bjorn again. He started by running me through the little rope ladders on the ground again, showing me different step patterns and asking me to cycle through them without making a mistake, and attempting to go faster each time.

It was fun. I remembered it being fun—not the kind of fun where I would ever think Gee, I can't wait to do that again! Just the kind of fun that was engaging in the moment, the sort of thing you could do without getting annoyed or even bored.

Normal people might start getting physically tired, but that was close to a non-issue for me at this point.

After warming up like that, Bjorn started teaching me some back and forth footwork. No sword movement—I was holding one in front of me, but I wasn't supposed to do anything with it yet. "You know, this feels remarkably like the whole karate kid thing, except if you cut out the actual car bit—ah!"

Bjorn knocked the training stick-sword thing out of my hand. "Hey! You weren't supposed to do that!"

"And you were supposed to stay focused. No more talking."

I rolled my eyes. Not exactly beating the wax allegations with that one. What he did there was quintessential martial instructor shit. I think?

Close to an hour later, Bjorn ended the lesson by conjuring a real weapon with his own Guardian abilities. The task was simple, and was more of a 'treat' to keep me interested in learning than a true exercise.

I was to summon my own sword and try to hit him with it. The rules were simple—I could move and swing however I wanted, but I couldn't use any of my own abilities except my inherent strength, and I also couldn't use any of the special features of my sword.

Likewise, Bjorn had the same limitations, and he also said he would only act defensively. All I had to do was hit him—I didn't have to worry at all about protecting myself.

He'd set up the rules of the fight to make things as easy for me as possible—but I already knew it was going to be a difficult challenge.

I came to the conclusion that, while the point of the challenge, beyond having a little fun, was to emphasize the importance of skillful technique, my strategy should be to abuse the rules of the engagement as much as possible.

With that context now in mind, a more specific plan began to take shape. Shit. I think I might be able to actually win this.

"I'm gonna kick your ass," I boasted, advancing towards a calm-faced Bjorn. "Not because I want to win, but because I'm feeling a little insulted."

While none of that was untrue, the real purpose was to serve as a distraction. My plan wouldn't work if he realized what I was doing—which meant I needed to look like I thought I was being clever in a way that was different from the true way in which I thought I was being clever.

Wheels within wheels.

"Alright then," Bjorn said, "show me."

I lunged forward, all power and no finesse, with the sword cocked back in both hands over my right shoulder like a baseball bat. Despite being stupidly telegraphed, it might have worked on someone with normal physical capabilities if only due to my superhuman strength propelling me into a superhuman lunge.

But Bjorn was both a professional instructor and a Tier 4 Guardian, and he sidestepped my clumsy attack with contemptuous ease. That was fine. It was only stage one of a multi-phase feint, after all.

There was more calculated technique in my initial lunge than what I let on, and just as expected, Bjorn moved to my left—perfect. I hadn't really been trying to smack him—it was all a setup for me to throw my sword at him.

The initial feint was important because it gave me a much better chance of hitting him. If I tried to throw it at him from the start, he would have realized what I was doing. By doing it this way, I was able to conceal my intention while both getting closer and setting it up to happen while he was already dodging.

But I missed.

And there's feint number two.

Yes—I never intended for it to work. Wheels within wheels—it was just another stage in my true plan.

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I likely wouldn't have succeeded even if I was trying to hit him with the throw. However, there was a possibility that he would have knocked it aside with his own weapon, which I didn't want.

As it were, he didn't have to dodge, and the sword flew past him to hit a concrete wall, bounce off, and clatter onto the floor. The strength of my throw was such that the sword impacted the wall with enough force to knock small pieces of rock off.

Hell yeah.

"Traditionally, it's a very bad idea to throw your weapon like that," Bjorn mused, "but for us, there's nothing inherently wrong with the technique. However, you will need to work on your aim, as well as learn what advantages and disadvantages it has, even with your abilities."

I made sure to listen to his advice as I walked over to retrieve my sword. No use tuning him out just because I had an ulterior motive. It would be useful in general, for situations where I wasn't abusing the rules of a training activity.

That being said, my real prize was the bits of concrete that landed near my sword. I made sure to obscure a good view of the ground with my back as I crouched down to scoop up both my weapon as well as a few of those little chunks of concrete.

Subtle and casual—I stood back up with my sword in my right hand—and with those little bits of concrete hidden within the fist of my left.

Then I went total cocaine ape mode on him.

I made huge lunges, ridiculous leaps, and swung my sword around with one hand like it was a flail. Bjorn avoided all of it, and it took him less effort than it took me to run after him like a dumbass.

All the while, I used my immense strength to grind and crush the bits of concrete in my fist into many more smaller fragments. Finally, when I felt the moment was right, I opened my fist to release a spray of tiny shards and rock dust.

Bjorn avoided the bulk of the cloud, but a few small pieces bounced off his side. Bingo.

Grinning, I came to a stop and dropped my sword to the side. "Got you."

Bjorn glanced at the faint dust trail, then at himself, then at me. "With tiny rocks?"

"Yes!" Continuing to grin, I pointed at the spot, now on the other side of the warehouse, where my sword landed when I threw it.

"You know how I started by throwing my sword at you? The point was actually to make it knock some pieces off the wall. Then when I went to pick up the sword, I also picked up the nearest pieces in my other hand, and then I crushed them in my fist, and then I waited until I thought I had the right opportunity to throw it at you."

Bjorn looked between me and the wall. "That's—that's not how this was supposed to go."

"Yeah, well, I told you I would win. If you're going to try making some kind of point about how you can win with skill if you can't win with strength, you should probably expect that the person who can't win with strength or skill will try to get clever."

Bjorn nodded. "I don't think I can argue against that. Well done."

After leaving sword training, I asked Cassandra about Bjorn. She explained that they'd decided to reach out to him, and he turned out to be fine taking me on as a student again.

He also reported us to 'the authorities,' whatever that actually meant, and basically got told that it was 'fine.' Whatever that meant. I guess, like, it's not like a grocery store cashier is doing anything illegal by selling milk cartons to people who happen to be criminals.

It wasn't like the 'authorities' were unaware of the stuff the Bouquet was doing. If it was as easy as identifying us and then doing a bunch of arrests, then they would have already done it.

There was surely a lot of nuance I wasn't understanding, but I decided that it didn't really matter. I got to take lessons with Bjorn again, and that was so much better than getting repeatedly beaten to the brink of death by a gaggle of femur-wielding skeletons.

After returning to my new home, I spent roughly half an hour handwriting notes to hand off to my deadbeat dad. I decided it would be less annoying to write down as much as I could while alone, exchange a few words, and hand off the notebook than to speak it all on the spot.

Then, after about another half hour, I told Cassandra I was going to walk a couple blocks down to the nearest convenience store.

"Just don't get too much junk food," she lectured me as I fiddled with the door latch. "I mean, because it could start looking suspicious, not because it's bad for you."

I rolled my eyes. "Yes Mom, thanks for the clarification."

The walk was nice. Is this really what living in suburbs is like? I didn't think so. I think most suburbs are, like, the houses are shittier and the streets aren't this nice, and you can't just walk a few blocks to areas with trendy little storefronts and shit.

It was a rich neighborhood, one of the gentrified ones, and it wasn't far out from the older parts of the city. I liked it.

After buying a party sized chip back, a pack of gummies, and a 'fresh' donut, I stuffed all my purchases in my backpack and headed for the restroom. It was one of the single stall ones, and after closing the door, a vertical, violet line sliced the air.

It then widened into a violet-rimmed, glassy distortion in reality, and I stepped through it, only to immediately stumble as I experienced a lurch of vertigo. "Ah, fuck, shitass wimpy fucking gravity."

Looking around, I confirmed which planet I was now on—Mars, it seemed, unless he also had a second, completely identical home away from home on a planet with like a third the gravity of Earth.

You know, I wouldn't actually put it past him…

"Oh good, she's here."

I blinked. That's not the voice I was expecting. Flicking out my tongue, I was overwhelmed by a clash of multiple immensely powerful flavors. Just by himself, my biological dad tasted like a cold apocalypse of fractured space and ruined cities.

That was bad enough, and my mom was much, much worse—but she never said anything, so it wasn't her voice that I heard. There weren't even two, or three, but rather six apocalyptically potent Star Guardians present.

Stepping further into the room, I peered around the doorway to the area where they were all seated. I immediately recognized all of them.

Two of them were my biological parents, kind of. Two of them were just generically pretty famous, and the last two were ultra mega super famous, and one of those had nearly killed me less than a day ago.

"Hi," Fabrica, the Tier 9 who hadn't nearly killed me—yet—said. "Don't worry, none of us bite."

I chuckled weakly. Okay, what the fuck is Aurora doing here? I thought Red and Blue were the main two enemies. So why—oh, fuck. Did I just walk into an execution? Did they get mad about the destruction and negotiate with the Reds to get rid of me?

Despite my nervousness, or perhaps because of it, I found myself latching onto a silly detail in what Fabrica said. "Yeah, I wouldn't expect you to," I joked. "Biting people is more of an Anathema thing."

Along with the two Tier 9s and my Tier 8 parents, there were the two other Tier 8 Star Guardians present. Huh. Each pair has one guy and one girl. Weird coincidence. They were known as the Foreman and Cascade respectively, and unfortunately, I didn't know which faction either of them belonged to.

"Ha," the Foreman barked a laugh and pointed at me. "That was a good one. You know, you might be a dangerous product of unethical research and an enemy of humanity, but I think I already like you."

I blinked. "Oh, uh, thanks? "

I thought this was just going to be a normal meeting... What the hell is going on?

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