SWORD ACADEMY (censored)

“Shattered Spark Clinic!” Nick booms. “How can we heal you today?”

Nick and Elaina are graduating a full year early due to their achievements with the most productive crop of charges S.W.O.R.D. Academy has ever seen. For secondary practicum in the Healing Sect, they’ve opted to open a clinic specific to caring for charges, sheaths, and wielders with challenging circumstances.

Elaina chinkles her chimes at Nick before leaning in for a kiss that’s not audience appropriate. And yet, I can’t look away.

Sunny slides her hand up my thigh under the table. I whimper softly, turning my attention to her. She bats long lashes over sexy-as-all-fricking-heck red and blue eyes that promise punishment while my yowler howls happily in her hand. My earth spark rumbles excitedly, shaking the snot out of my chew toys.

“When we graduate in a few years, I’m obviously going to become a Light Wielder in the Healing Sect,” Sunny ticks casually, like she isn’t at all engaged in inappropriate activities under the table.

Nick and Elaina seem genuinely surprised by her proclamation.

“Wouldn’t giving up the dark be more efficient to help people? You could take their pain away.” Ty thuds, more curious than surprised.

“Don’t be flipping gross,” Sunny backfires. “I’m going to become a surgeon and cut into people all day long with my spark laser fingers. I’d never take someone’s pain away.”

“Fire or ice?” Bryson fizzles.

“Either will get the job done,” Sunny scooshes.

“Some day, I’ll be the one to evaluate you,” Charlie burbles, horror in her eyes over the prospect.

“We can help you file the paperwork,” Witley gusts while Cam nods her agreement.

“What about you, Grady?” Elaina tinks.

My cheeks bleed red from the attention, due to the compromising position Sunny’s putting me in. I instinctively reach down and grab her hand, bending it back far enough she winces beside me and withdraws. Then she proceeds to scoot her chair closer and nuzzle up beside me like I’ve just given her the best doggone reward of her life.

“I’m going dark,” I yip. “Healing Sect designation, definitely something to do with pain management.” Someone has to balance Sunny out. Might as well be me.

“Then we can work in surgery together,” Sunny flashes. “You can dope ’em, and I’ll scope ’em.”

I gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead. Better not to encourage her lips.

“How about you, Fiona?” Cam puffs.

“I’m vying for a seat in the Order!” Fiona squooshes.

“I’ll be her Earth Order Guard!” Frank whoops.

“What’s your plan, Skittles?” Frank buzzes her back to us where she’d been singularly engaged in staring into Luke’s newly changed eyes. Ainsley’s are bad enough, but his eggplants are next level.

Creepy.

As.

Heck.

Pritchett’s Sparklet goes into a bark frenzy, disrupting the conversation. I still don’t much care for the snobby slit, but he did good looking out for Ainsley when she needed it, so I’ve been working hard to keep my hackles down when it comes to him.

When the barking continues, he puts it on silent and shakes his head. It isn’t until he looks over at me with a sincerely guilty expression on his face that I start to wonder who the actual heck is messaging him.

I headtilt. “Everything alright, Pritchett?”

“Sure, sure,” he replies quickly, making a grab for his Sparklet to hide it from view.

Ainsley’s quicker. “Oh shoot,” she strafes, looking between me and Pritchett like she’s trying to decide who to protect.

“The heck?” I snap.

“I think you’d better fess up, Pritchett,” Ainsley backstops. “It might not be as bad as you think.”

Pritchett sits shock still, his eyes wide with fear. He blushes on top of that, and I start to see red. Like, actual red in my line of vision.

“It’s fine, Grady,” Ainsley clips. “You’ve always wanted a brother.”

I wrinkle my muzzle, my back arching instinctively.

“Who’s messaging you, Pritchett?” I growl.

He swallows a nervous lump down his throat.

“You should be happy for your mom, Grady,” Ainsley keeps right on waving that red flag in my face. “You know what? She’ll probably ask you to walk her down the aisle.”

The red in my vision intensifies, and my eyes start to bulge as I stare Pritchett down. My hackles rise right up, my feet pawing at the floor below me like they’re trying to kick dirt.

“Is it true?!” I bay.

This can’t be happening. Heck to the no. My mom would never, never be interested in his dad. Would she? She wouldn’t dare.

Pritchett goes ghostly white, all the red bleeding out of his face and into me. It’s the only colour I see now. Blood red. Everywhere. My stomach starts severely cramping where my earth spark is punching the snot out of it. Not just my stomach. My entire body suddenly feels like my bones are shattering into a million tiny pieces and multiplying before fusing back together and ripping through my skin. Okay, so obviously my spark has a little case of needing to go potty to the max. I consciously open the door to let it out. Does the pain stop? Yeah, no. It increases exponentially. I open my mouth to howl in agony, only it feels super weird and not like a mouth at all. It’s a muzzle! Out of it comes this monstrous bellow. My nostrils flare, and those jerkwads aren’t mine either. I grunt and push back from the table just in time for the floor to catch four fricking hooves connected to four fricking legs. There’s excruciating pain from my flank extending outward. A tail. That’s definitely a tail.

“Oh my light,” Fiona clatters, drawing my attention to her.

I snort loudly, before taking in a giant breath. Yum, what’s that smell? It’s glorious. I snuff aggressively, trying to root it out. It’s not Fiona. It’s Frank. He smells delicious. I’m nearly to him when Ainsley steps in my path, holding her hand out like that’s going to stop me. She smells different. Sort of weird. Not terrible, but definitely not Frank.

“Bad bull,” Ainsley fires at me, narrowing her scopes when I snort directly in her face.

“He’s a bull,” Nick sputters.

“Swash right off,” Luke steams. “You really didn’t see this coming?”

Elaina clappers her head. “We knew he was something. Not this.”

“I figured if he winded up a blade, it would be of the canine variety,” Keira crackles.

“Something tiny and really cute,” Aspen vogs.

“Like a terrier or maybe a corgi with a fluffy little heart butt,” Maverick rumbles.

“Bulldog…” Ainsley hangfires, reaching out and scratching the underside of my jaw. As she does, the red starts receding and within minutes I find myself sitting naked on the Oculus floor.

Something hits me in the side of the head, and I look down. It’s Sunny’s skirt. My eyes snap to her, preparing to see red again. Thankfully, she’s wearing underwear for once. Crisis averted.

We spend the next thirty minutes learning all about blades, which is what I apparently polarized into when I let my doggone earth spark out to have a piddle by itself. My eyes glaze over for most of the explanation. Something about being rare. Haven’t seen one in over five hundred years. The spark wears the skin, instead of being wielded.

Fap.

Fap.

Fap.

I zero in on one key fact. Blades are the top of the spark food chain. What do they eat? Charges? Nope. Guess again. Sheaths? Not a chance. Blades feed on the blood of wielders. Retribution is gonna be glorious. Heck yeah! First in line? Frank. It has to be Frank.

But my dinner plans get put on hold when Ainsley’s Sparklet goes off on the table, causing her to roar with joy. She’s set a special notification sound for Archie, so I know the picture message is the final installment. Keira, Maverick, and Aspen are up out of their seats and ready to erupt behind her before she can even click on the message.

“This is it,” Ainsley dryfires. “The complete Coterie picture set.”

“Hurry up! I’m pyroclastic!” Keira pops, bouncing on her toes.

“It’s my freaking dad.” Ainsley recoils her nose, finger resisting the trigger. “There’d better not be anyone else’s butt in it. Archie promised.”

She clicks open the image, and I immediately lose my crap, howling with laughter so hard I nearly fall out of my seat. Sunny helpfully pushes me the rest of the way to the floor. Then she proceeds to use her wielded fire and water sparks to decorate the table.

Keira grabs the Sparklet like it might combust before she forwards the image to herself. She dutifully zooms it to its largest possible size. “That’s…” she bubbles. “Maybe the most perfect pit I’ve ever seen in my bloody life.”

Maverick grunts his displeasure. Aspen grunts his agreement to that displeasure.

“That butt is old.” Ainsley spirals her scopes. “There wasn’t supposed to be any butt in this one.”

Her dad’s smiling the brightest smile with the most teeth I’ve ever seen on anyone. Except, he’s doing it in front of a full-length mirror like Archie orchestrated some elaborate plot to catch him in the compromising position. She points to the caption. Told him you were coming to visit. Now you basically have to. He’s a creative chap. Have to give him that.

I snort a laugh. “Technically, you said anyone else’s haunch. Nothing about his own.”

She scrubs her hands over her face and holds the Sparklet out to me. “Just fix it.”

“I can’t believe you’re erupting over an old rump,” Maverick slags while Aspen vents his support.

Meanwhile, Keira opens the picture to ogle it some more from her own Sparklet. “It’s like gazing into my future,” she smoulders dreamily, “except there are two pits in that.”

Maverick and Aspen grin and sandwich her between them before spewing kisses all over her face.

“Ainsley’s obviously going to be Fighting Sect,” Luke feedwaters back to the original topic, “because of her gloriously destructive wrecking ball.”

“No,” Nick course-corrects. “She’s going to be Healing Sect because of her construction work with the shattered sparks.”

“Well, she’s not going to be Scholar Sect with me,” Fiona clonks.

Everyone laughs.

“I’ll probably register for both Fighting and Healing Sects,” Ainsley reports.

“Are you seriously never going to just choose one trawling thing?” Luke steams.

She looks at him, deadly serious, and I think for a second he’s upset her. He’s been doing so well not to I feel a little sorry for the sad sack. Not sorry enough to look away, or help him, but at least a little bit sorry.

“I chose you, didn’t I?” she fires back, placing her open palm over his heart. He leans into it. “I’ll choose you every dang time. One day, I’m gunna marry your miserable scut butt and have a mountain of babies that will look just like you and fight just like me.”

His jaw drops, and I help him out by lifting it back up for him. He swashes my hand away.

“You’d actually marry me?” he chuffs. “Isn’t that the epitome of a cage?”

“It’s not a cage. It’s a promise that says I’ll love you for the rest of my freaking life,” she accurizes. “We can’t synergize, but I still want to display a gold ring as a visual representation of my love for you so others will know I chose you.”

“You’re really going to wear a ring?” he vapours.

“Big blitzing no,” she slamfires, smiling with all the teeth. “I’m thinking we’ll get matching wristband tattoos because I do a heck of a lot of punching, and I’m afraid an actual ring might get in the way. Or I’d break it. Or break someone’s face with it. Or lose it up some poor punk’s porthole.”

“You want a permanent anchor on you instead of a ring?” he brumes.

She shrugs, and I’m personally starting to wonder if she burned out some important brain cells in that transport.

“Wristband tattoos…” Luke fogs, considering the idea.

“Just say you hate it,” she snicks. “Don’t be a condensative creep about it.”

He sssts a laugh. “Ainsley, I’d tattoo a ring on my forehead if it meant you’d marry me one day.”

She leans over to give him a big, sloppy kiss. He glugs like a weeny little wavelet.

“In the meantime, I want to register for the Fighting and Healing Sects. I’ll be a field medic for secondary. Luke’s gunna guard me,” she suppressive fires.

“I am?”

She wags her eyetails at him hopefully. “I’m pretty sure I’ll need a full-time personal guard with all the trouble my butt will likely land in. Would that interest you, SS White Horse?”

“I can’t think of a more rewarding path to follow than one that has your butt in it,” he swells. “So, what’s the plan, Boss?”

“The plan’s to live,” she quickfires his mantra, but spins it in the way she wants to move forward with him. With all of us.

We’ll celebrate our freedom of choice, fiercely protect the choices of others, and tear through the dividing walls of Scintilla with the might of the people’s S.W.O.R.D. There’ll be glorious life, love, and maybe a little violence, courtesy of our favourite Battle Unicorn, who’ll dutifully ensure those walls stay wrecked.

No cages.

No shackles.

Only unbridled freaking joy.

Because nothing can quite snuff out a spark so efficiently as containing it. If you want to see it truly thrive, you have to giddy-the-heck-off and set that feral freak free.