Is this destiny?

~ California, the Beach house ~

Thursday

4:57 PM

Sarah and Aiden are sitting at the back of the house, in front of fifteen girls who are forming a semi-circle: Xiaohui (from China), Francisca, Antonia and Panya (from Brazil), Rosa and Camila (from Venezuela), Pari and Harini (from India), Panya, Chione and Femi (from Egypt), Esma, Azra, Merve and Hande (from Turkey).

With the exception of Hande, all the girls are between eighteen and fifteen years old, and all of them have equally determined expressions on their faces.

The girls are demanding to start with more intense training. They don\'t want to only run around and increase their endurance.

"You just arrived. Why don\'t you take it easy?", Sarah asked.

"We are here for two weeks.", Rosa responded. "We took it easy."

"Don\'t think that we are not grateful, we are.", Xiaohui added. "Everything we have here is great."

"But we can\'t relax when we know what is out there and with every day we relax, we are one day further away from being able to fight against it.", Francisca continued after Xiaohui.

"You can make the world a better place in more ways than just fighting.", Sarah advised them.

Merve stood up. "Yes. We can paint and make music and dance and maybe even learn medicine. But none of them would help when facing evil people who want to hurt us."

Other girls nodded in unison.

Sarah looked at Aiden and he shrugged, indicating that he can\'t help her in making the girls change their minds.

Sarah turned to the girls and gestured to Merve to sit down before speaking seriously: "It is not easy to learn how to fight. It\'s a process that requires you to build your strength and stamina first. That is why we told you to start with running and stretching exercises. Taking shortcuts will only lead to you getting hurt."

Aiden decided to chime in: "We admire your spirit and we will support you desire to become fighters. However, none of you will be allowed near a mission unless you demonstrate abilities that will prove that you can handle a prolonged mission and also good academic results to show that you are thinking about your future. To confirm that this is true, you can ask him…", Aiden pointed to the side toward Daniel who was peeking behind the tree.

Sarah waved at Daniel to come.

Daniel sheepishly walked toward them. He wanted only to hear what is going on, and now he was called out like a peeper.

"Tell them about your routine, when you arrived.", Aiden demanded.

Daniel nodded at Aiden before turning to the girls. "We were here for three months. All of us. We started with running and eating well, and then other things were added. We had to attend school and have good grades before we were considered to go on a mission."

"Three months?", Azra asked with disappointment obvious in her voice.

"Don\'t focus on the time.", Sarah said. "I told you that you will be here for at least eight weeks. Until then, you have a chance to work on improving your stamina and figuring out what you want to do. Tomorrow morning, we will do a series of physical tests, and based on that we will give you an exercise schedule. The test will be repeated every two weeks and you will have clear guidelines on what benchmark you need to reach in order to start with the next stage."

"It is up to you how much effort you want to put into this. However, we don\'t advise you to do more than what we tell you.", Aiden added. "If you rush into things, it might lead to you getting hurt. We hope that you are wise enough to know that we don\'t need additional inconveniences by taking care of your fractures because you were impatient."

Sarah saw that girls\' fighting spirit subsided and she turned to Daniel. "I will leave the rest of the discussion to you."

Daniel was surprised. "To me?"

Sarah smiled ominously. "Instead of telling them about the glory of missions and beating up baddies, you should tell them how the training starts and all the hard work you put into it."

Aiden nodded in agreement with Sarah and added with a straight face: "And when you are done, meet me at the fighting ring for a sparring match. I didn\'t test your progress in a while."

Daniel swallowed hard when he realized that he is being punished. Why is this falling on him? Everyone else spoke about the glory of going on missions.

Sarah and Aiden stood up and before leaving, Sarah told Daniel: "Don\'t forget to mention that after three months you only moved to the Cliffside villa and that you didn\'t go on an actual mission for another few months."

Daniel nodded solemnly and faced the girls. "Any questions?"

"How many months?", Azra asked impatiently.

"It was about six months for me...", Daniel exhaled. "And first missions didn\'t involve fighting…"

Girls exchanged glances and started talking amongst themselves and asking questions to Daniel at the same time. In an instant, a clamor invaded the space.

"Quiet!", Xiaohui shouted, making all the girls look at her in silence. She cleared her throat. "Daniel is here to answer our questions, let\'s take advantage of that. One by one, raise your hand if you want to talk next, just how we do when Sarah and Aiden are here…"

Daniel looked at Xiaohui gratefully before giving a signal to Chione to go ahead with her question.

…

Later, in the fighting rink…

Aiden is facing Daniel who is launching attacks at visibly bored Aiden.

"You are not focusing.", Aiden said after some time. "Should I call Xiaohui to watch for additional motivation?"

Daniel froze. "What?"

"Do you think that we don\'t know you are coming here because of her?"

Daniel realized that there is no point in lying. "Is that a bad thing?"

"It depends on your intentions. You know our policy about relationships between the family members. You are not blood-related, but we hope that you see each other as brothers and sisters first. It is normal that some of you will develop other feelings, it is natural. However, I must warn you that if you rush into a relationship before you think it through, and it ends up badly, you will cause a discord not only between you and Xiaohui but between others as well who will be forced to choose sides."

Daniel nodded in understanding before asking: "How do I know if it will end up badly or not?"

Aiden shrugged. "You don\'t. But you should make sure that your feelings are true. Don\'t make a move on a girl just because she is pretty. There are always prettier girls around the corner. Don\'t make a move because she is smart or funny. There are many smarter and funnier girls also."

Daniel was confused. What kind of logic is that? "When can I make a move?"

"When you don\'t care how pretty or smart or funny she is, because you want to stay by her side and make her happy no matter what."

Daniel stared at Aiden, knowing that he heard something important.

"Don\'t space out. I\'m here giving you a personal lesson, take advantage of it…", Aiden reminded Daniel that they are in the fighting ring.

Daniel took a deep breath and assumed a fighting stance before launching another round of attacks with renewed vigor. 

---

If you are not reading this at \'W e b n o v e l .. c o m\', then the content you\'re reading is stolen! Please support the author by reading this novel from the original source.