Shadowhunter in the Apocalypse

The silence that followed seemed to stretch on forever before Hale's voice broke it, it was still calm but Reed could sense the underlying anger.

"Are you done proving how pigheaded you are?," he began in anger, it seems the last thread of formality seemed to have snapped when the man had seen his own daughter naked and sprawled on the ground.

"Is it because it's Reed, because you know he will forgive this pitiful display? Do you even know what Reed had accomplished when he was 2 years younger that you?!." The old hunter's tone stayed formal, but Reed caught the disappointment underneath it.

"By then, he had already mastered three beast forms! His shadow endurance could last for at least 20 minutes! And his Shadow constructs were not only stable but combat-ready. And, more than that, he had achieved something that almost no Shadowhunter in history had accomplished at that age, he had shown minor but successful results with shadow teleportation."

Reed wasn't sure why the old man was reading out his accomplishments to a girl who had just failed, it seemed counter productive but who was he to question the method a dad used to correct his daughter?

Shadow teleportation was one of the most advanced form of shadow magic, it was different than entering a shadow and letting it carry you, or becoming a shadow and moving in it's form, this was manipulating laws beyond physics using Shadow magic to move between two shadows without them touching, really Hale was being a bit generous with his analysis, many Shadowhunters never even glimpsed into this level of magic before they die.

"And that was only his beginning." Hale's voice carried more weight now.

"Since then, the man before you has served in five supernatural wars."

"He has stopped three demon invasions before they breached human territory."

"When vampire clans broke the blood accords and turned humans into black-market livestock, he dismantled three separate trafficking operations, freed the captives, and destroyed every clan involved. This was just last year in Italy!"

"Even when rogue werewolf packs defied our laws and spilled human blood, Reed was sent to hunt them. He brought down the three packs in full with no recorded werewolf left alive."

With each statement, Mia's head seemed to sink even further, until finally she was directly looking at her feet.

"So before you do anything willful as usual, please think of what it costs, how many potential lives can be lost without his involvement in headquarters, just so he could train you!"

With that he walked out of the training room, leaving another awkward silence for Reed.

Reed cursed the old man for leaving him with a sad teenager because how was he supposed to act now? Comfort her? Go on like nothing happened?

The thing was Reed was never close to her when they grew up, she was sent to an all-girls school designed for Shadowhunters while he was sent to an all-boys school and then after he showed talent he was brought to Black industries for a more hands on training experience with Mr Hale.

He assumed this was the reason he kind of felt like he was looking at a stranger.

He sighed as he decided to just do whatever came naturally to him, an idea quickly came to mind.

"Don't worry about Hale, believe it or not i used to be chewed out a lot, actually I think I was more berated than praised actually" Reed suddenly dropped his voice to a quiet whisper as though there were spies nearby "there was this one time when an external supervisor came from LA to check out my performance and the previous night I had decided to get HEAVILY drunk at this party."

Mia covered her mouth like he had just told her he had thrown a baby in the river, he smiled at that, Shadow hunter kids were heavily restricted against anything fun, they lived to keep the peace, and their body was a necessary tool to keep that peace or atleast that was what Commander Hale always screamed at him. So he wouldn't be surprised if Mia had never tasted a drop of alcohol even though she had tattoos, tattoos didn't affect body performance so that wasn't all too bad.

"And worst of all" he continued with the same tone "He had arranged this big fight between be and 5 shadow hunters."

"FIVE?" She yelled.

"Yes five" he smiled at her reaction "I had always been met with different expectations since I was younger so don't mind that. The problem was how I fought with this mind numbing headache."

"Did you lose?" She asked carefully and softly, Reed had to ignore how her voice affected him and continued, this time with a boisterous laughter.

"Of course not! But it was very close, the last guy almost had me until I threw up all over him"

Even the memory itself made him laugh, the expression of the boy was priceless.

"You're Kidding!"She said laughing with him, he blinked and smiled at how beautiful she looked.

"I'm not, your dad was VERY pissed, I don't think I'd ever seen him so pissed in my life actually…and this is coming from someone who made it his job to make the Old man pissed at least thrice a week for Good heart exercise"

Mia giggled at his joke "I can only imagine"

Reed moved to the center of the hall, talking as he walked "I told you that to tell you this, Mr Hale…sorry Commander Hale is a perfectionist, he wants the best for you and often times that could result in him to controlling and once in a while you might want to push back and do something to show him that you're not a child anymore".

His eyes glanced at her body, she blushed as she got the message.

"I'm not judging," He shot her a grin "to me it was drinking just like how you seem to like tattoos, but don't mistake his tough love approach for disappointment, I can tell her really believes in you just like he believed in me, if not I wouldn't be here as your mentor"

"But you have to show him you are ready to go above and beyond before he lets you go, it's really that simple."

"So here's how this works," Reed said, smile cutting across his face. "I've heard your father tell me what he thinks you are, I've heard what the supervisors think you are, now it's time for you"

Reed with a smile smug on his face curled two fingers toward himself in invitation.

"Show me who you are, Cadet Mia"