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"But Mama," Kieran said. "Isn't that too high?"
"Come on Kieran,"
Kiefer taunted. "Why? Afraid you'd fall off?" The
boy was
balancing himself on a balance beam, waiting for his brother to
join him.
"I'll show you who's afraid!"
Kieran shouted as he jumped on the beam,
clearly more
agile than his brother. The beam wobbled a little under his weight
which
caused Kiefer
to almost fall.
"Now, now boys," Mia
told them not far away. "This is just practice,
remember?"
"Don't worry Mama,"
Kiefer told her, never taking his eyes off his brother.
"I'll take it
easy on him."
"If you can catch me," Kieran taunted.
They both crouched down to a
fighting stance, watching each other for the
first move.
Kieran did a roundhouse kick aimed for his twin's head but the
other boy saw
it in time.
Kiefer ducked and punched his brother, upsetting his balance.
The other boy
quickly
recovered when he used his backward momentum to do a back flip,
catching his
brother
on the chin and kicking him back. Kiefer fell on the balance
beam and caught
himself
before he fell off.
"Nice kick," Kiefer said as he slowly got up again, rubbing his chin.
"Nice punch," Kieran
said as he straightened up. They settled down again and
watched
each other.
Mia watched the two of them
going at it. She couldn't help but see Anubis in
both of
them. It didn't help that both boys were clad in the came identical
subarmor
the Warlord
wore. They were both jumping around on the balance beam like
they were on
solid
ground.
"You've done rather well on their training," a voice said from behind her.
"Glad to know that you
approve, Dais," she answered without turning to him.
"What are
you doing here?" Anubis didn't trust the Warlord of Illusion
much and that
translated
down to his family.
"Can't I just watch without being suspected of plotting something?"
"When it comes to my boys,
whoever comes near them is suspicious to me." Her
arms
crossed in front of her, waiting for him to answer back.
"Well if it makes you feel
any better, I'm just here to see how they're
doing." He silently
left her as her eyes narrowed at his back.
"Oof!!" She quickly
turned to the boys and found Kiefer on the ground with
Kieran
quickly scrambling off the beam to get to his brother.
"That was pretty stupid," Kieran said as he stood before his brother.
"Hey! I didn't know that
you could do that!" He raised his hand for his
brother to take.
"Where did you learn that?"
"Saw Papa do it once."
He grabbed the hand and pulled him up. "But Mama
didn't get
hurt."
"That's why I'm the one
doing the training," Mia said as he came up behind
them.
"My butt hurts." Kiefer rubbed his backside.
"If you were paying attention,
you wouldn't have fallen." Kieran crossed his
arms.
"Well I'm ready for another
run at it. If you're up for it." The boy
smirked at his brother,
waiting to see if he would accept the challenge.
"You're really asking to
get hurt, don't you?" Kieran watched Kiefer climb
the balance
beam again.
"If I can beat you on the
ground, I can beat you up here." He steadied
himself and looked
down on him. "Don't tell me you're still scared?"
"Who are you calling scared?!"
He quickly got up the beam again. "I beat
you once on
here, let's do it again."
"Okay, boys," Mia
interrupted. Both of them turned to her. "This is just
practice. This is
going to make you two work better."
"But I thought that we did work together?" they answered in unison.
"You did. This is going
to make sure that you two are always connected with
each
other."
"By beating each other up?" They looked at each other.
"Something like that.
Just be sure you don't hurt each other too much."
They nodded and
got ready to attack again.
***
"You, lady, are amazing,"
Dais said as he watched the exchange between them.
"Those
two are turning out better than you think. They're anticipating
each other
already. My
plans for them and their father are coming to bloom."
He watched the two boys jump
around on the balance beam again. The one with
red hair,
Kieran, looked like he was born to be on there. The other one
wasn't too bad
but was a
lot slower. Dais left when Anubis showed up.