Horizon

Chapter 17

A loud thud echoed around the training room as Spikes threw one of her knives at a wooden silhouette of a human. With each throw, she too a few seconds to inhale, held her breath, and then exhaled. After she exhaled, she quickly pulled a knife out of her sheath, and threw it. Each knife hit its mark with precision.

"The trick is to focus your energy on what you want to hit," Spikes said, keeping her eyes on the target. "Try to imagine a line coming from your eyes to the target. Once you have the line where you want it, throw the knife, and follow through with your arms."

I pulled a knife from the stack that Spikes had laid on the table, and stared at the target in front of me. The fact that there were already three knives in the head was a little unsettling to me. I pushed those thoughts away, and tried to imagine the line.

"This is my favorite way to prepare for a fight," Spikes said more quietly. "If you lose your focus during a fight, then you'll miss every shot...whether you're shooting your rifle, or throwing a knife."

I did my best to imagine the line before raising my knife. Once I figured the line was in the right spot, I let the knife fly, making sure to follow through. I watched as the knife flipped in the air, and landed directly in the middle of the target.

"Whoa," I muttered, as I saw my knife embedded in the fake human.

"Yeah...now you're getting it," Spikes said. "Just take some more time to practice. I'm going to head back to my room."

"Okay. Thank you for helping me out," I said, holding out my paw.

Spikes looked at my paw but didn't grab it. "Thank me by not screwing this up, hyena," she said roughly. With that, she grabbed her own knives, and strode towards the exit of the training room. I watched as Spikes left the room, wondering why she was so coarse. She helped me get better at aiming, so I probably shouldn't have worried about it.

I took a few more minutes to practice my throws before feeling confident that I could keep my edge if something were to happen. Once I was done I put the knives away, and made my way out of the training room.

Surprisingly, Thomas was waiting for me on the other side of the door. He leaned against the tunnel, and twirled one of his own knives around his paw. Once he saw me he sheathed it, and nodded his head towards me.

"Getting some pointers from Spikes?" he asked.

I bobbed my head in reply, and leaned next to Thomas against the tunnel. "She's incredible with those knives."

"Yep, she's been playing with knives for as long as I've known her," Thomas said nostalgically. "You don't ever want to get into a real right with her. She can kill you with the throw of a knife."

"And the cannon on your wrist? Is that your weapon of choice?" I asked.

"Oh, this?" Thomas asked holding up his rat cannon. "I've been tinkering with this for a very long time. It's my last-resort weapon. I can blow up stuff from a quarter mile away."

"How does it work?" I pressed

"This was a tough thing to make," Thomas explained.

He removed the device, revealing two small holes his arm that looked a little gross to me. He handed me the cannon, and I got a good look at it. The cannon had what looked like a canister to hold carbon dioxide...the ones that looked like they went into air-soft pistols. On the front of the device, where the blue energy came out, there were too small rectangles on either side of the round glowing plate.