Chapter 96

96 A Maistresse Lesson

“Wow, you guys are something else!” he said with a laugh as he walked over towards us, with his hair perfectly combed and his eyes bright. He looked at Tisiah as he walked past him, “Not bad for a rookie.” He then walked over to September, and he looked over at her with a smile on his face.

“Such determination,” he said, as he went over to me and said, “Such will.”

Malachi stuttered, seeing we were getting compliments from the captain himself, “Watch this!” He sped towards Maistresse, who looked at him as if he was some kind of pest. He swung his wand at her while chanting some words at her, but she easily blocked his attack by using a shield that appeared out of nowhere as if it was made out of thin air. It probably was to be honest.

He was reflected back into his own shield and then he ran back at her while swinging his wand again but she easily blocked it with the shield again, causing it to bounce back at him and hit him straight in the chest. He tumbled back and fell on the ground while gasping for air like he was choking.

She quickly walked up to him before she pointed her wand at him and shouted a bunch of words at him but he just stood up and brushed his hair.

“What’d you say?” Greg asked.

She sighed. “I was speaking French.”

“Oh, but what’d you say though.”

“Nice try,” she said as she smiled at him. Then she pointed her wand at Greg and shouted more words at him before she hit him with another spell that sent him flying across the room like Tisiah did before. “Ooh,” we muttered as he hit the ground.

.....

Captain Vance left the room, and Maistresse chuckled. “Clearly some of you guys need more help than others.”

“Yeah, hopefully not me,” Malachi said, dusting himself off as he stood up, coughing and gasping for air like he had just run a mile or something. But then he looked at Maistresse with a smirk on his face. “Better not.”

“Yes and no,” she said, looking back at us. She pointed her wand at us, and then suddenly she was standing on one side of us with her wand pointed at us as if she was ready to strike us down with her magic.

“Now, everyone needs to sit down,” she said. We all settled ourselves on the floor and stared at each other while she sat down as well, but I didn’t think it was right for me to sit in front of her with my legs crossed so I sat with my legs crossed in front of me instead. Overthinking, yeah maybe.

“One thing we need to learn is about self-defense,” she said. September looked at her in confusion.

Maistresse nodded. “I know what you’re thinking: you don’t need to know self-defense because you have your wands. But, you always use your wands for offense only.”

She paused for a second before she continued, “I’m not going to say that you should never use your wands for attack because they are useful in times of emergency but we need to learn how to block ourselves from other attackers. Your lack of self-defense may kill you someday.”

Malachi looked unimpressed, but he didn’t say anything else.

I gulped as I thought about what she said, so I asked, “Is there like a rule that states that we can’t use our wands at all?”

“No, but some people take it into serious thought when it comes to self offense. Your wands are almost incapable of doing so, but you should still use it thought for your offense,” she said, while she pointed her wand at me. I gasped.

She laughed, “That’s what I’m talking about. Your wand strikes fear as well as a good weapon, but it’s way too thin to be much of a helper. You need to exercise your body. Take hits.”

Tisiah nodded in agreement before he said, “Yeah, you should really take it seriously.”

“I don’t see the point in it though,” September said with a sigh. “You’re still hurting yourself.” Maistresse returned, “There is a difference between hurting yourself, and taking a hit.”

Greg shrugged, “I agree with September.”

“It’s not that hard,” Malachi said with a shrug of his shoulders.

But September shook her head slowly, while I could see Tisiah nod in agreement with Malachi as well. “So, what are the ways to build your body to prevent those things?” Greg asked.

She smiled. “It’s simple really.” She stood up and walked over to Greg and Tisiah, then she pointed her wand at them as if she was casting a spell. They both gasped as they looked up at her and they slowly stood up. I thought she was gonna destroy them to prove a point or something.

She then pointed her wand towards the gym section, and Greg nodded in realization. “Exercise, let your muscles build,” she said as she walked back over to us, “And learn to block your enemy’s attacks.” She looked over at Malachi and September and she sighed before she added, “Learn to block the attacks of other people in general.”

“Alright...” I said, not sure what to say else.

“So today, you’ll work on exercising. I will grade you based on how much effort you put in it,” she said with a smile as she walked back over to us, where she then proceeded to point her wand at September and then Greg. She raised her wand as if she was ready to strike them down. They both quickly stood up and started to follow her as she started to walk towards the gym section, which meant we had to follow them.

We arrived, and there weren’t many people which was quite a good thing. The three of us sat down on a row of mats near a pole as we waited for Maistresse to give us our orders. “Alright, give me some sit-ups,” she said.

We all sat down as Maistresse looked at us with a stern expression on her face. She was kind of scary to be honest, but we all did what she said as we started to do sit-ups. I laid down, taking a deep breath before starting. This was gonna be a long class.

“This was harder than expected,” Malachi grunted, pushing himself up with his arms before laying back down. I did my best not to laugh as he grunted again. You should’ve seen the way he was moving though: his face was bright red as if he was running a marathon or something, and his body was shaking from his effort.

Tell me that isn’t funny.

But I was no better myself; I was doing pretty badly because I was focusing on not laughing. But then September spoke up from across the room, where she was doing her sit-ups as well:

“You should stop joking around,” September said with a strained voice as if she was in pain. I gulped when I heard that. These past few days September has been nothing but cross with me and now she’s speaking to me in a cold tone, which doesn’t really bode well for my heart right now.

Maybe it’s how she always is or something. Maybe it’s the stress or something, I don’t know but I felt a sharp pain in my heart and my stomach churned as if it wanted to rebel against me, and my breath became shaky. It felt as if I had asthma or something and it was going to kill me. I couldn’t believe how quickly September had turned against me this past week...

I’m scared to think about how much she might hate me...

My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest and I had to take a deep breath to try and focus myself. It was harder to exercise when thinking about all the bad things that have happened recently, but I managed to force myself to do my best.

When we were done, Maistresse nodded as if she was satisfied with our performance, but we were too sore to even continue.

Or at least I was. Greg looked energized like a little kid who had just won a game of soccer, so he was the only one who didn’t seem affected by his exercise. I gotta give it to him, he’s not the most active person in class but when it comes to sports, he can do no wrong.

Preview:

After our training, lunch was announced. My heart leaped with joy as I walked through the door with my friends: Greg on my right, Tisiah on my left, September walking beside me as if nothing happened last class period. We walked inside and the place was already full, which wasn’t surprising because everyone wanted to have lunch as soon as possible since we didn’t know when we would get another chance at it again.

I mean, the place was full. Malachi sighed as he looked around, looking rather displeased at the fact that he couldn’t find a place for us to sit. “All these hungry fools can’t even give us a place to sit,” he scolded, looking over at us with an annoyed face on his face.

I shook my head as I looked at him in disbelief. Then as I looked to the left, I saw a partially empty table laid out. “Over there,” I pointed at the table with a smile on my face.