23

“Good morning, Jinri!”

Jinri shuffled into the kitchen, greeted by D.O., who was currently making breakfast. She grunted in reply, and plopped into a seat at the table. She was asleep again within a few moments, and he gave her head a reassuring pat. The kitchen soon filled up, everyone drawn in by the smells of D.O.’s cooking.

“Are you ready for your first day of training?” Suho asked Jinri, who under the temptation of food, had woken up fully.

“I don’t really know what to expect, so I guess I’m ready enough,” she replied through a mouth full of eggs. “I’m not even sure of the guy’s name, much less what exactly I’m supposed to be learning from him.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Jinri!”

There were several reactions of surprise as Taemin appeared in the kitchen, perched on the edge of the counter near the sink. Chanyeol nearly choked on his eggs and had to pat on the back by Baekhyun.

“Taemin,” Luhan greeted, barely containing his distaste. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company this morning?” Taemin gave him a rather bored look before turning his brilliant smile on Jinri.

“I’ll be bringing you to your trainer around in a half hour,” He told her, ignoring the others in the kitchen. “Be dressed in workout clothes, and pack a change of casual clothes for after. I have somewhere to take you when you're done.” And just as suddenly as he appeared, he was gone, leaving everyone confused.

“I guess I better hurry and finish eating,” Jinri mumbled, shoving the last of her bacon and eggs into . She wasn’t expecting to start this early in the morning. It was barely past nine, and she had at least hoped to make it to noon without having to do anything.

But sure enough, a half hour after he first appeared, Taemin once again came to the house. This time, he rang the doorbell, and Xiumin answered.

“You’re back,” was the only greeting offered by sharp-eyed wolf boy. But his focus wasn’t on Taemin, it was on the man who accompanied him. “Oh, you must be Jinri’s trainer. Please come in.” Taemin didn’t seem fazed by Xiumin’s lack of respect, but just entered the house to seek out Jinri. She was coming down the stairs and froze in her tracks when she saw Taemin and his guest, her new trainer.

“This must be the new Tamer I’ve heard so much about,” the man said in accented Korean. Jinri nodded her head and finished her descent, coming to a stop in front of Taemin and the man. At that point, the rest of the pack had filed into the living room and was gathered around the back, watching nervously.

“I’m Yeon Jinri, but I’m sure you already knew that,” Jinri said, giving the man a bow. She gestured to the twelve shape shifters behind them. “This is my pack. And you are…?” She didn’t want to waste anymore time than she had to, as she grew more nervous with each passing moment.

“Jinri, meet, your new instructor,” Taemin introduced. “Henry, meet Jinri. Jinri, this is Henry Lau. He’s come all the way from Canada, where he is the Tamer of the Toronto Pack, and governing member of the Eastern Canada Tamers Coalition.”

“You don’t mind it too much if we start right away?” Henry asked. “I see you’ve dressed for it.” He smiled and Jinri looked to her pack members. It was clear they were worried for her, but her look of confidence reassured them.

“Sure, let’s go.” Much to her surprise, Taemin popped out on his own, and Henry grabbed Jinri’s arm. In seconds, they had arrived in a medium-sized forest clearing. Henry let go of her arm and took a few steps backward, leaving a couple of feet of space in between them.

“First things first,” he said, casually slipping his hands into his pockets. “We’re going to test your speed. I want you to run a complete circle around this clearing as fast as you can. Start over there.” He pointed to a skinny little tree a few feet away. Jinri jogged over and stood, waiting for his signal. He nodded and she began.

She had no idea what she was expecting, but for the ground to rise up and nearly toss her to the side was not one of them. She let out a startled scream and dove around it at the last minute.

“What the hell was that?!” She shouted as she continued running. “You didn’t say anything about-” but her sentence was cut off by a pillar of water shooting up from the ground and soaking her clothes through.

“Henry! What hell is going on?” She called, but Henry just stayed silent as she went through the course. Water, earth, fire, and even some wind were her obstacles as she attempted to make a complete circle as fast as she could. When she was done, she collapsed on the ground at Henry’s feet, panting heavily. He crouched down to her level.

“Not bad for a first run through,” he commented casually, as she struggled to catch her breath. “We set this course up based on a couple of your packs abilities. I assume you know which wolf has which?”

“Not…all of… them,” she panted, glaring at him. “Why didn’t you warn me?” Henry flashed her a goofy grin.

“If I did that, you would have run slower out of caution,” he told her. He stuck out his hand to help her up, and she landed on her feet with a slight stumble. “Tamers need to be quick on their feet, with minimal hesitation.”

“But how does my packs powers have anything to do with this?”

“You’ll have to know the dangers of their powers before you can learn how to harness them and use them to your advantage. Some of them are a little more difficult to work with, like Luhan’s telekinesis, or Kai’s dark matter, but we’ll work on that later. Who’s powers don't you know?” Jinri thought about it for a moment.

“Xiumin, Kris, Suho, D.O., Tao, and Sehun,” she told him. “Though I still don’t understand. You say I have to know the dangers of their magic, I get that part, but how am I supposed to use their powers? As far as I know, I don’t have any of my own.” Henry shook his head with a smile.

“You do have your own, but it differs from theirs,” He said. “This isn’t like Harry Potter where you need a wand and some wormwood to make magic. Magic is nothing but a higher energy that takes some practice to use. The very fact that you are a Tamer makes it so that you can tap into that energy and make things happen. How do you think it was possible for me to bring us here?” Jinri hadn’t given it a second thought, honestly.

“Fine, let’s just get back to the course,” Jinri relented, huffing. “So I’m not quite up to snuff on the speed. What can I do to improve?”

“That’s the spirit!” Henry grinned. “I’m going to assign you some homework. I want you to start going on runs with your pack. Don’t worry about keeping up with them, you just need to run. For now, we’re going to go through this course again. Try to focus on your stride; don’t overstretch, but don’t short step yourself either. You want to make sure that you can dodge quickly if something catches you off guard.”

And go through the course they did. Jinri managed to improve her time from 15 minutes to twelve by the time they stopped, and she managed to not break anything. She did have several large bruises on her legs and arms where she smacked into a pillar of water, or tripped and fell over a giant tree root. The course changed every time, making it impossible for her to predict which element was coming at her next. Yet she was confident in her improvement.

“You catch on quick,” Henry complimented, handing her a bottle of water he seemed to pullout of nowhere. “From what I can see, you have a natural quick response reflex. You’ll be good at hand to hand combat.”

“Oh goody,” Jinri drawled, not at all excited for becoming a punching bag. “I don’t suppose for long range, you’ll have Chen hurl lightning bolts at me to dodge?” The sarcasm was