The Mercury Palace

Chapter 8: In Strength and Weakness

-Aiden-⚕️

      I ran into Liu in the hallway. "Hey!" I called to him. "You know where Nilly is?"

     "E.J.'s room, I think."

     "K, thanks!" I broke off from the group of proxies after being forced to make many, many, promises to make it to the training room without making any detours for coffee, sleep, etc.

     In short, I had three minutes. At the most.

     I ran to E.J.'s room, skidding to a stop outside the door. I knocked once and was greeted by the response of what sounded like five people all answering at the same time.

     "What?!"

     I opened the door and stuck my head in the room. "Hey, Nilly. I found Kagecat. I gotta go, so he's your problem now." I threw the cat into the room and closed the door before he hit the ground.

     I waited for a second listening to the chorus of 'What the hell, don't throw the cat!', 'You named your cat after me? I'm honored.', 'What?!' and 'Why would you throw the cat?!'

     Finally hearing the thump of Kage hitting the ground I turned and ran down the hall, laughing maniacally.

. . .

     I stood to one side of the room, methodically shooting arrows into targets I'd put up while softly humming along with the music I was listening to. It had been forever since I had done anything remotely archery-related. Even after all those years, the muscle memory was still going strong. The key was to let my mind go blank and just go through the actions.

     The training room wasn't much to look at. It was pretty much just a large space converted into a room fit for sparring and weapons training. It was open to all, but most preferred to hone their skills by actually going on a hunt. Eventually, the Proxies took over and claimed it.

     I stepped back more as my aim got more and more accurate. I was so focused on what I was doing that I didn't notice when the noise of the others' sparring stopped. I finally looked up when I realized that there had been way too little noise for a while. Looking around I noticed Masky and someone I assumed was Rouge studying me.

     She had long dark brown hair, a stark contrast to her pale skin. Her dark red hoodie's sleeves were rolled up, the hood up. Like most of the others, she had a mask covering her face.

     I looped my headphones around my neck. "Hey."

     "Aiden, this is Rouge," Masky introduced us. "Rouge, this is our newest acquisition, Aiden, or Saturn."

     "I've heard a lot about you." She was the type of person where you could hear the friendliness in their voice. After being met with so much hostility, it was almost off-putting.

     "Um, from who?"

     She let the question linger for a moment before changing the subject. "You're pretty good with that bow you have there."

     I grinned. "I had a pretty good teacher."

     "Oh? Who would that be?"

     "Why, none other than Cassandra Mercury herself."

     Rouge seemed to be stunned into silence for a minute.

     "Aiden is Cassandra's younger brother," Kate explained, the others joining the conversation. "Nilly is their younger sister. You'll probably see her around at some point."