The Shadow Court

Chapter 13 - Stronger

"Bring your leg up higher."

"Like this?" Ella swung her leg in a roundhouse kick at Harley's head.

He caught it in his palm and nodded. "Nice! Okay, now try the acrobatics combo I taught you."

Ella acted without a moment of hesitation. She placed her hands on the ground and proceeded to wrap her legs around Harley's neck. Then she pulled herself up so that she was practically sitting on his chest and leaned forward. Her weight caused Harley to collapse back onto the grass and consequently pin himself underneath her.

"Very... good." Harley sputtered.

Ella smiled widely and crawled off of his stomach. Harley slowly got to his feet and shook the grass out of his hair. His attempts at teaching Ella acrobatics had proven fruitful, but she still wasn't ready to learn backflips or anything fancy like that. However, in contrast to the rest of the team, she was by far the most skilled acrobat besides Harley in the team. Her agility was near Harley's level, as she could keep up with him when they went rooftop scaling. That was something that no one else had accomplished. Overall, Harley, and probably the rest of the team, had underestimated her.

"Can I learn something new now!?" Ella practically shouted. 

Harley cast his eyes up to the blinking stars overhead. "Um... perhaps we should wait until the morning. I think everyone's asleep already."

Ella groaned. "True, but I'm on guard duty tonight so I'll be staying out. Are you?"

"Actually, I think I am." Harley said. "Shall we?"

The two of them retrieved their gear from inside and climbed up onto the rooftop. At first, they were spaced out to view both sides of the hill, but Ella soon became bored and started a conversation.

"Are you hungry?" She asked.

Harley paused his sweep of the front yard and snickered. "Yeah, a little. Why?"

"I can see a Maccas from here."

Something inside Harley rumbled loudly. "Uh, as much as my body apparently wants that, I think running off for a Maccas dinner would kind of defeat the purpose of 'guard duty'."

Ella sighed and twirled her mallet. "Since when did you become so... responsible? You were always the fun one; the one that broke all the rules."

"I'm still that guy!" Harley protested. "I just had to reign it in a little when my girlfriend was kidnapped and I was suddenly in charge of everyone. Cut me some slack."

"Alright! Alright!" Ella exclaimed, holding up one of her palms.

Harley thought for a moment, then turned around to face her. "What about you? When did you and Wills stop being a thing? I thought you were his loyal sidekick until the end?"

"I told you!" Ella snapped. "I ended things because I didn't feel like his partner anymore. He treated me like any other thug in his crew." She went silent for a moment. "Whatever. It's over now. I'm going to become stronger without his help."

Harley furrowed his eyebrows. "I have to ask, why did you stay with him in the first place? He's kind of... I don't know... old? For you."