The princes were not in a good mood when I entered the room. It was still pretty early in the night and to see them this annoyed already spelt trouble. With a slight wave, I knelt in respect.
"Ah, Skytel, just who we were waiting for. Would you like to tell us what your little adventure last night was about? Lying would not be a good move for you now so think carefully before you answer." Hideki said threateningly. The truth was the only viable answer here but they would not like it regardless. It did not seem like they would like any answer I gave, though.
"Well, I went to blow off some steam after going to the massage therapist for the first time. But Kristine decided not to tell me what I was getting into when she recommended it so I walked into some pretty awful pain unknowingly." I said straight faced still looking at the ground. The princes sat in silence for a moment before speaking again.
"Rise." They commanded as I stood straight up and looked at them. "You had to blow off steam after having your body taken care of by a massage therapist? And you brought trouble to all of vampire kind because of it? That is foolish! You have caused us all problems because of your immaturity! I should come down there..." Hideki started before being cut off by a wave of the hand of Hoizon. Even among the princes, he held the most authority as he was the oldest.
"It is fine. We will work it out with the humans somehow. I understand your frustration, Skytel, but you have caused us quite a bit of trouble. If not for your mentor, you may not be here now. While the humans' weapons are not enough to kill us, they do hurt and cause a bit of lasting damage and as such getting into a fight with them three hours before the sun came up would spell disaster for a young soldier such as yourself. You have not even completed the training and you already try to fight a whole city police department? Did you consider how that would blow back onto us?" Hoizon said looking at me emotionless. I could feel the rage in him as he talked but he outwardly hid his emotions very well.
"I did not, my prince." I said with a quick bow. "Since the humans do not know about us, I did not think anything of it going against some police and college students."
"They do not no but did it ever cross your mind they might have Moonwalkers among their ranks?" Hoizon asked back genuinely confused. The thought truly had not crossed my mind but after seeing one, I realized they could be anywhere and I would never know until I got close enough to sniff them out. Without realizing it, I started clenching my fist in frustration at my own ignorance. How could the thought never have occured to me? I was supposed to be a superior breed of vampire. We were a superior species to humans yet I made such a foolish mistake. I vowed to never let it happen again.
"It is ok. Just be more careful. Vampire kind has been around for millenia and we have yet to be discovered by humanity. It is because we are careful. Most of the historical figures have known about us but that was by our choice. You should be more careful if you are to venture out on your own going forward." Hoizon said calmly. I nodded before taking my leave. Diach was away handling his own business as I rarely saw him in the base. It was as good a time as any to go back to the arsenal to train. I had no idea whether I still had hundreds of lessons left or only a few but with the amount of detail of each session, I had to guess quite a lot.
"Welcome back. Come for your next lesson?" Odesza asked turning his head as I walked towards him. It still amazed me how he knowledgable he was despite being blind. He never turned the wrong way or spoke away from who he meant.
"Of course. I need the training apparently." I said angrily thinking about how I could not fight through the police before sunrise but many of the other vampires would have been able to.
"The princes talked to you, did they?" Odesza asked curiously. He was privy to all happenings in the base as he was the strongest and in charge of training everyone.
"They did. I cannot believe how weak I am compared to everyone else. It just is not fair. I was a relatively strong human, among the strongest I would say. Well, not counting professional fighters like mixed martial artists. But among the vampires, it is like I am nothing more than an ant. I need strength. I need power." I said thinking about my eventual take over of the clan. Odesza stood looking in my direction with a small smile on his face.
"Very well then. Let's get started. If you plan on running those princes from their thrones you will certainly need strength." Odesza said prophetically. I had not even told Diach of my plan so there was no way this blind man knew. I was very careful to keep that under wraps. There was something about this man. Whatever it was, I did not want to risk challenging him as is. We started and worked through our lesson as usual. It was parry training this time. Odesza showed me how to precisely time a block and counter to make it most effective. There was breath timing, strength guaging, speed monitoring, a lot of factors. Most of the things Odesza showed me were all based on breath and timing it seemed, even before this lesson.
After training for a few hours, I walked over to the bath area to dip in the bath and relax for a while. This was the first time in a while my schedule was completely free so I did not know what to do. If I went to the bar there was a chance I would run into Kristine but if I went back to the city so soon, the police would stop at nothing to hunt me down. The bath was about the only safe place I had so I soaked for over an hour before getting bored and drying off. Ever since becoming a vampire, I could never sufficiently dry my hair. I had to wait to spike it back up until it was dry so walking around with wet hair was quite annoying.
Just letting my feet carry me where they decided, I ended up at the bar with the bartender. I had never actually talked to the man so now was as good a time as any.
"Hey, bar hand, what is your name?" I asked as easy going as I could. He jumped at the question before going back to shining a glass.
"My name is Bertholdt. I do apologize, master, just no one ever talks to me so you caught me off guard. Might I ask why you are talking to me?" The bar hand asked in a foreign accent. It sounded like he was fresh off a boat from somewhere but he was not a human so he could not have been that fresh off the boat.
"Well Bertholdt, it is your lucky day. I am feeling friendly today. Tell me your story. How did you end up making drinks for a bunch of vampires?" I asked the man genuinely. We went back and forth with question and answer for well over an hour before I was so drunk, I could not even remember my own name. Someone carried me back to my room without having been given directions but I was too drunk to think about it any more.
When I woke up the next day, Kristine was standing around in the room talking to Allie. Their voices were quite annoying to wake up to first thing in the morning. After jumping out of bed, I took off toward the arsenal without saying a word to either of them. They got more persistent each day I did not talk to them. As usual, the lesson went cordially. But at the end of it, Odesza said something peculiar to me.
"You are about half way to full hand-to-hand combat training completion. We will get you started on weapon training after that. You just have to be more disciplined once we get you a weapon. Our swords, spears, and especially axes are made from a special metal that is extremely sharp and durable. It would not be outside the realm of possibility to say they could cut through buildings." Odesza bragged as he waved towards the weapon rack. They had a peculiar blue hue to them that I noticed before but I always assumed it was because of the lighting in the base. I could not see Diach's knife all that well when we left the base as he rarely used it and when he did, I was focused on other things, like staying alive.
My eyes filled with excitement and wonder at the thought of having my own weapon. What kind of man would I be? The axes were definitely out of the question as I did not have the ungodly strength to effectively use those giant weapons. Would I be a spear man, a lance man, maybe a sword user? The possibilities were endless. They had every kind of bladed and non-bladed weapon. The nunchuck-staff was enticing as well among the unbladed weapons. I continued to think about it as I walked out of the arsenal and back towards the feeding chambers. Odesza was very diligent in only letting me do one lesson a night so it would be at least another week before we got to weapons. A week was a long time to wait, though, since I was already looking forward to it.
Upon entering the feeding chambers, I saw the one person I was trying to avoid: Kristine. Sitting here waiting to eat, I could not avoid her. I looked at her with frustration before walking over to get on the list. Fortunately, one of the other vampires on the end got up when I walked over to him. Unfortunately, the vampire next to him also got up to change seats when Kristine walked over to him and asked. She was a very beautiful girl and had an ungodly womanly charm she used to her advantage when she wanted something. Men were putty in her hands. Judging by how many people were sitting here waiting, we had at least an hour before either of us were called. I really was not excited about having this conversation. It would certainly lead to tears on her side but it was a necessary talk to make sure she would never overstep her boundaries like that again. I did not like being betrayed or feeling like I had been.