Chapter 26: Chapter 25 - Nat

Tuesday 8 December

~*Nat’s POV*~

“Let’s get these fights underway!”

It was late afternoon. After the draining session last night with Kennedy, and a session of something called geocaching this morning, which I had rather enjoyed, not to mention an afternoon of mountain bike riding around and through the forested area close to what everyone called the ‘pack house’, I couldn’t help but feel rather exhausted.

Cody explained to me that the ‘pack house’ was what we were all currently living in, and where she and her family normally lived. It was open to anyone in the community who needed shelter, but was primarily used as accommodation for Takeshi, Spence and Kennedy and their families, as well as the quarters for camp attendees and warrior training attendees.

To me, it just felt like a hotel. Or what I imagined a hotel would feel like.

Now, we were all huddled around an open area off to the side of the courts where a bunch of mats had been laid out, and Takeshi was calling out something about fights?

I didn’t know what he was referring to, but every other camper seemed to become incredibly excited. There were a couple of campers who were quieter, but the vast majority cheered. I turned my head to my left to stare at Cody, who was not the most vocal of the crowd, but was certainly no shrinking violet at the announcement. She clapped her hands together in excitement, although admittedly, she did that every time we did anything new. I couldn’t say that it was entirely unexpected.

Bells sat to my right, but not really close next to me. I think he was still annoyed with Kadin for making such a huge scene yesterday, so he was making a point of sitting next to me but was refraining from getting too close so he wouldn’t set her off again. He’d been like that all day.

Murph sat to Bells’ other side. I could hear them chatting away excitedly over Takeshi’s announcement, Bells more so than Murph. Owen was sitting somewhere else, next to a girl as usual, but a different one to who he was floating around with yesterday. Bells was right; Owen was indeed a player.

Tatum and Zelda had drifted in and out of our periphery today. They disappeared for an extended time together this morning, reappearing just before lunch was called, wandering slowly back into the campgrounds looking rather dishevelled. Tatum was plucking grass out of Zelda’s hair as they walked. No-one at all needed to guess what they had been up to.

Cody finally turned her head to me and leaned over. “It’s something we’ve been doing this year. In our last year of high school, we’re trained on how to fight. The focus is on self-defence, because they do offensive training as part of the warrior training course. But during the camp, it’s both defensive and offensive. There are human fights and wolf fights for those that have already turned eighteen.”

My eyes widened. I wasn’t sure if I was up for this. All our other activities so far during the camp were just that. Activities. A lot of fun, but nothing particularly physically dangerous or anything like that.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Cody said, as she turned back to Takeshi and Spence standing in front of us all. “We won’t have to fight any wolves. We can spar in our human forms.”

“Spar?” I whispered, terrified. “With who?”

Cody turned her face towards me again. “We could fight each other? Don’t stress. It’s just a bit of fun. Nothing to worry about.”

I blinked at her, stunned. Was she serious?

Takeshi coughed to get everyone’s attention and to quieten us all down. “We’ll start you all off in your human form to get you warmed up. After an hour, those that want to can shift to their wolf form and spar.”

More cheers went up from the campers. I felt the colour drain from my face.

“Let’s all keep it civil though, folks, okay? Auden has enough work without worrying about you lot filling up her medical beds. And remember, this is just the first session of many of these that we’re going to have, so don’t do anything risky that will wind up getting you pulled from these.”

I gulped. There were going to be more of these? What had I got myself into?

“We need a pair for each mat. Go!”

Bells tapped me on the back. “You’re okay to do this with Cody?”

I nodded silently. I was still feeling terrified.

Bells laughed. “It’s nothing to worry about, Nat. We all do this.” He turned to Murph. “You ready for me to kick your arse?”

Murph snorted. “You can try.”

I sighed as they both got up and headed to the nearest mat available. Cody grabbed my hand and nearly pulled my arm from the socket as she dragged me up off the ground and over to the open mat next to Bells and Murph. I wiped the grass from my backside as she hauled me along.

“Cody? I don’t think this is a good idea.” I watched as pairs threw punches at each other. Mercifully, the majority weren’t connecting with anything other than air, but some were. Every so often, a thump, smack or crack sounded across the field, making me wince.

“Relax, Nat. I’ll take it easy on you, okay?” Cody smirked as she took in my terrified expression.

“That doesn’t make me feel better, Cody.”

She laughed. “Come on then. Let’s see what you’ve got.” She motioned me onto the mat.

I watched as she got down into a crouch.

“Come at me. See if you can land a punch.”

My eyes widened as I just stood opposite her. “What??”

“Come at me. Attack me.”

“Cody, I can’t do that. You’re my friend.”

“Okay. I’ll attack you then. Defend yourself from me.”

“Cody…” I sputtered as she launched herself at me.

Oh, crap.

She jumped up into the air, trying to gain as much height as she could before aiming a punch at my head. I dodged easily, parrying her arm out of the way with my opposite hand.

She didn’t stop, though. Landing on her feet, she took aim at my midsection, trying to land as many punches as she could. I deflected every single attempt she made, planting both of my feet in a wide stance to keep my balance.

She took a step back, before back-flipping in front of me, aiming one foot towards my head.

I dodged that too.

Once she landed, she paused and looked at me. “You’re good. At least one of those should have landed.”

I stood up from my widened stance and threw my hands up in the air. “Cody, this is crazy. I’ve never done this before.”

She held a finger up at me. “Correction. You can’t remember ever doing this before. And from what I’ve just seen, you have had at least some training. Defensively, at the very least.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “What else was I supposed to do? You came at me!”

“I know, silly! That’s what this is all about.”

I growled at her. “Cody…”

“You think you could attack me now?”

I shook my head again, this time in anger.

“Okay. Get ready for more defence, then.”

I let out a huff as she barrelled towards me again. This time I was quicker as I lowered my stance well before she got anywhere close to me, parrying every attempt she made at touching me. She swept her feet to get me to fall over, but somehow, I could predict what she was going to do before she did it and jumped or skipped back with every attempt.

The blows came quicker and quicker, aimed at every part of my exposed body. I held my hands up to better push back her advances.

I realised she was forcing me backwards off the mat. The mat gave me better grip, so I sidestepped her next sweep, and tried to jump past her, attempting to get back towards the middle of the mat.

“Uh uh, Nat. The centre of the mat is mine. If you want it, you need to attack me.” Cody matched my every move to get past her.

Finally, in frustration, I brought my elbow slowly up towards her chin, to get her to move back. Unfortunately, Cody missed it, and a loud crack sounded as my elbow connected with her jaw.

She flew backwards to land on her back, letting out an ‘oomph’ as the air left her lungs from the impact.

“Cody!” I scrambled after her, kneeling beside her as she regained her composure. “Damn it, Cody. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, as she rubbed her jaw. “Just didn’t see it coming is all.”

“Really? It was right there. Not like you could have missed it.”

“To be fair, it was coming at me super-fast.”

“You’re kidding, right? I was trying to telegraph it for ages, so you’d get out of the damn way!”

Cody glared at me. “You’re saying you could go quicker than that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably? Doing all that felt slow to me.”

Cody huffed as she forced her way to her feet. I held out a hand to her to help her, but she refused my offer. I hoped I hadn’t offended her.

Still rubbing her jaw, wincing slightly at the most tender part, I could tell that the wheels were turning in her brain, thinking about something that she obviously didn’t want to share with me.

“Looks like I’ll have to step it up then.” She shifted to the centre of the mat and held her hands up and motioned for me to come at her.

I stayed where I was. “Cody, I really don’t want to do this.” I shuffled on the spot, feeling incredibly uncomfortable about this whole thing. Fighting her was not my idea of a fun time.

She straightened up and placed her hands on her hips. “Nat, this is what we do. A bit of self-defence training is always a good thing.” She took two steps closer to me and lowered her voice. “Look. I know that this is making you uncomfortable, but you’ve obviously had training, otherwise there would have been no way that you would have been able to avoid some of my attacks. Think of it this way. It’s one more thing about you we didn’t know half an hour ago.”

I tilted my head to the side as I thought about what she said. It was true. I had no clue about this side of me until she attacked me.

I think she could sense my wavering conviction as she grinned that wicked smile of hers.

“Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to see how far your knowledge goes? Come on. Attack me.”