Page 4 of Destinies of Diamond
“Thank you, Typhon. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
What I didn’t tell him was that I was genuinely considering the possibility that I’d have to face something like that in the near future. My migraines were becoming worse and worse. For the moment, they hadn’t kept me from connecting to Typhon. If anything, my bond with my chimera seemed to help. But we were hovering on the edge of something disastrous. I could feel it.
Typhon couldn’t have missed my apprehension, but he didn’t try to offer empty promises. Instead, he remained silent, simply making sure my body healed from the pain I’d put it through.
If not for Typhon’s advanced healing skills, I’d have probably been in a situation worse than Knox’s. Once again, I’d gotten lucky. It was a shame I couldn’t really enjoy it.
To make matters worse, we still had classes to go to, and it wasn’t anything pleasant. I did not look forward to a hand-to-hand combat class when we were all in this condition. But like Selene had said, we didn’t have a choice.
We took our trays to the cleaning drones and left the mess hall. The other units were already making their way through the academy, to their respective classrooms. It was probably for the best that Selene had left sooner, since she’d managed to avoid the crowd.
“What do you think this assignment will be about?” another student asked in front of us. I recognized him as a member of the Shuttle Piloting unit, although we didn’t really socialize.
“It could be anything,” one of his companions said. “I heard that a few years ago, they asked people to make another asteroid.”
“Seriously? And how did they manage to do that?”
“With their shuttles, of course.”
Actually, if I remembered well, no one had passed that particular test. It had been before my time, but my father had occasionally made jokes about it. It wasn’t unusual for The Grand Judiciary to throw impossible tasks at us, since in their opinion, sharpening our skills against undefeatable foes would help us.
In theory, it was not a bad strategy. In practice, I couldn’t have hated it more.
By the time we reached the gym, I was in an even fouler mood than before. My headache had significantly worsened, to the point that not even Typhon could completely suppress it. I wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to skip the class altogether. If I saw Paul Welton today, I wouldn’t react well, and the chances of Knox doing something very crazy would increase.
Tartarus smiled on us, as Paul Welton was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the teacher waiting for us was Commander Trevor.
“Professor Welton had a family emergency. I’ll be taking over the class until he returns. I hope you know I won’t be going easy on you because I’m no longer your full time teacher.”
I respected Commander Trevor, although in some ways, I still didn’t understand him. He’d been a pilot in the Harpy Squad when he’d been younger, before he’d lost several of his limbs. The files from Penelope suggested he’d been involved in The Grand Judiciary’s experiments in some way, but if that was the case, he’d never seemed to begrudge them.
There was just one problem. Something about Commander Trevor was different today.
He’d been my teacher for years, ever since I’d first come to the academy. I’d known him even before, because it hadn’t been unusual for him to visit the palace when I’d been younger. His body language was completely off. Was it my impression, or was he giving us long looks?
Remembering the announcement from the mess hall, I made a mental note to be more careful around him. Paul Welton’s departure could only mean one thing. He’d noticed his daughter was gone and that she’d found the tablet. He would probably be looking for Penelope now. Was Commander Trevor in league with Welton? It seemed unlikely, but not an option I could discard.
As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have any allies at the academy except the members of my unit. Danger could come from anywhere, especially now that Selene was pregnant, and Commander Trevor was among the teachers with most access to Selene.
If he had a connection with my father and Paul Welton, he might know about August’s part-apsid background, and that was a ticking time bomb too. It was only a matter of time until someone tried to use that against him. So far, they hadn’t done so, but I was pretty sure they were watching August pretty closely.
I didn’t let any of my apprehension show. When the others shouted, “Sir, Yes, Sir,” I echoed them.
The strange emotion on Commander Trevor’s face melted away into a familiar determination. “Today, we’ll be doing something a little different. I will be pairing you up in groups. It’s all well and good to know how to fight individually, but in the end, on the battlefield, team work is essential.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Without teamwork, we might have never survived our incursion in the Apsid Quasar. And by the same token, if we’d worked better with Selene, we might not have had to go save her in the first place. But had something happened that had triggered this change? Was Commander Trevor uneasy for some reason?
I waited for him to elaborate and I was not disappointed. “We’ll mix things up a bit,” he said after a brief pause. “Instead of sticking to teams made up of your own units, you will work with people from other squads and fight your previous teammates.”
My mind went blank. For a few seconds, I thought I’d heard wrong. I had no problem cooperating with other squads and I’d sparred plenty of times with my lovers. But mixing the two didn’t seem like the best idea, since we’d have to join forces with people who didn’t like us, while fighting our friends.
“Maybe that’s the whole point, hatchling,”Typhon offered.“It’s a challenge. You never know what happens on the front. You might not always have backup from the Grand Chimera Unit and you have to at least be civil with other groups to survive.”
I’d have liked to say that the various units at Chimera Academy were perfectly civil, but that would’ve been false. There had always been an underlining tension between us and the rest of the school, stemming from both jealousy and historical background. Selene’s addition to our team had fanned the flames of that blaze, and everything had been made even worse by Jared’s supposed death.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to solve our problems with a sparring session, but I guess everyone needs to start somewhere.”
As promised, Commander Trevor divided us in teams. I ended up sharing a group with the worst person possible, Jared’s cousin, Vincent. Like the other members of the Harpy Squad, he still resented us for what had happened to Jared.
