Thanks to yesterday's exhausting but useless scavenger hunt I got to sleep very easily last night and although my dreams were all about my revenge against Javier, I am in a more cheerful mood than yesterday.

I look at myself in the mirror, give myself a dazzling smile and say "What's up handsome?"

"Please don't tell me you say that to yourself every morning." A voice behind me says.

I turn around and grin when I see Ariah standing behind me. She looks glamorous as ever, even though it's quite early in the morning.

I grin at her. "Only every time I look at the mirror."

To my surprise, Ariah laughs at this. I don't know whether she thinks it's stupid or something but she's the first person to not roll her eyes at me just because I think I'm amazing.

"Remind me to tell Imogen about that one. I bet she'll love it and then proceed to remove all the mirrors in this place."

"Please make sure she doesn't do that. I couldn't bear not see my beautiful face for so long."

"Trust me Benjamin I wouldn't let her. I like seeing my face too. Plus how would I do my makeup?"

Its not like she needs makeup, but I'm not really the type of guy to compliment someone out of the goodness of my heart.

"Anyways, the real reason I came here was to tell you to lighten up your breakfast today, because today we're going to teach you how to fight."

*

As usual I have an apple for breakfast and I don't even bother sitting at the breakfast table today if I have to come out a minute later.

I'm really curious as to why we need to know how to fight here, what do we need to fight against, its not like anything or anyone can hurt us.

I'm not complaining though. This gives me a chance to get rid of all this pent up anger I've have been holding ever since I found out about Javier.

Since no one else is here, I might as well warm up my body so I'm ready to fight. Im not trying to brag or anything, but I'm really am already super good at close combat.

By the time someone comes out to start the session, I've already managed to stretch and get some practise punches and kicks in. I'm just going to say it here and now, I'm not a huge fan of fighting myself, but self defence is something that needs to be learned.

Its turns out two people are going to be teaching me today. The first person, as I expected, is Elijah, looking scarier than usual with acceptable fighting clothes.

However, I never would've expected the second person. There, in a tight black bodysuit, is Ariah. Ariah, the girl who I've never seen out of designer clothes. How does she know how to fight? She doesn't seem the fighting type. Yet... those clothes seem to suit her well.

She waves me over to the area just in front of the lodge. This area is covered in grass so that way if we fall we won't get hurt.

"Hey." She says

"Hey." I reply and try not to look to surprised.

She laughs at me. Clearly I didn't succeed in hiding my surprise. "You can stop with that look. Elijah here might have the most strength when it comes to combat, but I have the most technique and I'm quick. So I'm going to teach you the way to fight and Elijah's gonna teach you how to defend when the other packs a punch and how to pack a punch yourself. First off though, Im gonna test out your fighting skill."

I smirk. "Okay then, let's get started right away." I want to see her face when I knock her off her feet.

She smirks back at me, most likely wanting to see the look on my face because she thinks that I'm going to be knocked out. That's where she's wrong.

She throws a left hook at me first. This probably means that she's left handed. When I duck I take this into mind so I can be prepared when she next does this.

Next she tries to kick me in the face. I see she has no mercy. Good thing I lean back just in time and hook my legs around her feet to trip her up.

As I expect, she sees my legs and jumps over them. However this jump allows me to get back up and gain the upper hand. I throw a left hook as well to lead her into thinking that I'm also left handed. Later on I can use this to trick her.

So far although she's been on the offensive it seems like she's struggling to keep up with me. As for me, its like everything is going in slow motion and my thoughts are moving at 100 miles per hour.

Of course next she tries to knee me in my precious area, which I use my reflexes to clervely block. Since I have her right leg in my grip, I use my own right leg to take her left leg out so she has no feet left to keep her standing before I drop her and pin her down.

As I kneel over her, I grin. I haven't fought like this in a long time. Even though I don't like to do the dirty work, sometimes its good to let loose.

When I look into Ariah's eyes, she grins back at me. She looks like she's having fun too.

"I got to admit, you're much better than I thought. Looks like I'm gonna have to up my game."

She rolls both of us over so its her kneeling over me now. I would try to just push her off me, but I don't know if I have enough strength for that. What can I do...?

I roll us over again: I have enough strength to do that. After that I use this opportunity to stand up and back away. This is the best way, because we can just start the whole fight fresh.

This time I rush at her, ready to punch her for real, whether its a girl I'm punching or not. However when I throw out my left arm to punch, it's easily stopped by her hand. I guess she must have picked it up too. But that's just what I was hoping.

She manages to get a punch right on my face where it hurts. Ouch. I elbow her in the chin right back. I'm pretty sure some blood came dribbling from her mouth.

I hear a load of "oooohs" from inside the lodge. My eyes flicker to the window for a second and I see the other seven all standing there, watching us fight. I guess they wanted to see me get blown back and were surprised when I went to hit a girl.

However, that one second gets me discracted and that causes me to get punched in the mouth. Now its me who tastes blood.

Before she can get any more hits in I get a grip on myself and knee her in the stomach and get ready for a swing with my right arm for the first time.

As I predicted she lifts her hand up to stop my left arm from hitting her, and by the time she realises the mistake she's made its too late, I hit her with a hard punch and she's on the ground.

I'm pretty sure I accidently hit her too hard when she doesn't get back up.

*

Good news. Ariah is fine. She comes to around 30 seconds after I hit her. But I feel soooooo bad. I didn't mean to knock her out like that.

She sits up almost straight away, looking unphased and still unbelievably elegant even with blood dripping from her nose.

"Wow. You're way better than I thought. And way smarter."

"Gee thanks. Glad to know you have faith in me."

Ariah laughs. "No seriously, where did you learn how to fight like that?"

I shrug. "I only learnt as a self defence. I don't usually like to do the dirty work myself.

"Well you sure are good at it considering you don't like it."

"Thanks, you're not too bad yourself. I wouldn't expect you to know how to fight."

"Neither would I. You seem like one of those rich kids who brags all the time about their skills but can't actually do shit."

"Ditto. That's exactly what I thought about you."

"Oh trust me, I was far from rich. I practically lived on the streets."

I look at her ludicrously. "Really? So is that how you can fight so well?"

"Yea. We had to fight all the time. I always longed to be rich though. That's why I wear all these rich things all the time. So I can feel like I've always wanted to feel.

"Wow. I didn't think wearing designer clothes could be such a deep thing." Oh crap did I just say that outloud?

Ariah snorts at this. "Yea, well now you know."

"Heyyy..." I start. "I'm sorry about punching you so hard... Multiple times."

"Wow I didn't know the sadist Benjamin Snyder could feel guilty."

"Shut it."

*

"Wow did you see him?! He was like Pow! And Woosh!" Hours later, everyone is still speaking about the fight this morning. Now its lunchtime. Theo in particular is super excited about it. Then again, he's excited about pretty much everything.

Right now he is talking with Milo, who agrees energetically. I never thought he would be excited about this.

I dont know why, but literally no one was expecting it. They all stood in shock at the end, their mouths gaping open like they were fish or something.

After that fight, Elijah did some training with me on strength and power, and I have to say, I was terrified. My strongest punch barely did anything on him.

Now after lunch I don't know what I have to do next but its obviously something Ariah is excited about, because she's smiling way more than usual.

For now I'm just going to enjoy my lunch in peace, or as much peace as I can in this place, eating my sandwiches and my apples.

*

Lunch is now over and its on to the next part of self defence training. To be honest I don't really see what Ariah is so excited about, we're just learning how to shoot guns with good aim.

Ariah stands next to me while I hold a pistol in my hands, aiming at a target.

"So what do I do? You haven't even taught me how to fire this thing."

"Do you not even know how to fire a gun?"

"I've never needed to."

"Watch me, I'm only gonna show you this once."

She inserts the ammo into her gun, releases the safety lock, uses both hands to steadily aim, and pulls the trigger. When it hits smack bang in the middle of the target she turns to me and grins. She must like the thrill of shooting a gun.

Well it looks simple enough. I do everything she did and I shoot. Except it doesn't hit the bullseye. It doesn't even hit the target.

Ariah laughs at this, harder than she laughed at my jokes. It feel like my pride is being stomped on.

In between her laughs I can hear her say "you looked so confident - when you did that - and when you - missed - your face was priceless!"

I huff at her and try again. This time I'll definitely get it!

Hours later, we're still here trying to improve my aim. At least now I'm hitting the target, although its just the outer edges. It turns out my aim just sucks. And here I thought I was good at everything.

Having given up by sunset, Ariah decides to move on to the next element of my self defense training.

"Now we are gonna learn how to use knives and defend against them. Of course we'll learn how to hit places which aren't fatal."

I freeze up. I don't like using knives. Defending against them, sure but using them...

You could kill anyone. By stabbing then literally anywhere. It just scares me. I don't want that much risk in my hands.

"First off though, we are going to learn how to defend against knives before attacking. Because we don't want to be stabbed before we get a chance to stab."

Okay, defending against them is fine I guess. Its useful to know.

She holds out a knife to me. "Try attack me with this."

My eyes widen. "Huh?"

"Don't worry, you won't actually stab me, I just want to show you a demonstration on what to do."

The knife is still there, in front of me being held by Ariah. Part of me knew I had to take it, to get over what had happened in the past. Another part of me was scared to take it, scared that I'll make the same mistake I did last time.

I hesistantly hold out my hand and take the knife with firm grip. Ariah takes a step back and holds her arms wide, like she's asking for a hug.

"Come at me."

Okay so I was gonna make this chapter longer at first but I saw that it had already gone to almost 2250 words so I decided to stop here as it seemed like a good place to. Also tell me what u guys think. Am I hiding Benjy's past too much? When do you think I should reveal it? Am I hinting at it too much? This is my first ever original so I'm not too sure myself. Anyways in probably gonna edit this and release it tm cuz its 00:09 and I can't edit properly right now. Hope u guys have a great day!