My schedule was the same for the rest of the week until the tournament; training in the day, drinking and talking at night. I spent quite a lot of time trying to get Lion's attention but she was immune to my charms. She was giving me the cold shoulder. It was quite an odd feeling, complete disdain from someone you only talked to once.
As I was sitting in the bar a few nights before the tournament, I sat down at Lion's table but as I did, she got up and took off. It left a bad taste in my mouth being ignored constantly. It was not like I did anything exceptionally disrespectful to her or anything to deserve this poor treatment at all in fact.
"She really does not like you." The bartender said when I took my usual spot in one of the chairs. Without looking up from the glass he was shining he added, "You must have really done something to offend her for her to ignore you like that. That woman is usually a relatively kind girl who takes what people say to heart. I have never seen her ignore someone like she does you."
"I have no idea what I possibly could have done. We talked once a few nights ago during a fight we were in. I did not say anything overly disrespectful to my knowledge." I told him carefully thinking about our short time together.
"That was probably the problem then. Even with our limited conversations, I have come to know you are very cocky. The woman does not like that personality trait and prefer a more humble but still passionate mate. She was probably very turned off by whatever you said and has decided to cut your contact down to that one time." He said calmly.
While it was true I was very confident in everything I did, I would not consider it cockiness. Everything I said, I made sure to follow through on. Maybe that was the issue. I would have to show rather than tell.
There was nothing I could do that late at night either way, so I decided to follow through on my path starting the next day. As I laid myself in my bed to sleep, Diach came stumbling in. He was totally wasted. That was of little concern to me. I would have to deal with him when I woke back up.
When I woke up the next night, Diach was still sleeping sprawled out across his bed. He would have to be a problem for another time. Without waiting, I bolted up and out towards the armory. When I walked in, Lion was training. But they wrapped their lesson up quickly upon my entrance. As she walked past, I grabbed her arm to talk.
"Hey, listen..." I started before she elbowed me in the chest and kicked me away. It caught me by surprise and took a few moments for me to regain my bearings. As I laid on the ground, gasping for air and squirming in pain, anger came surging through. Before I could even ask anything, I transformed and was filled with rage.
"That was not a smart decision." Odesza said to Lion. They had some small conversation while I was getting to my feet as Lion had backed away to Odesza but he seemed like he was not going to save her. I could not tell my body not to attack. It was like I had lost all control and was watching a movie play from inside my head.
"You just made your last mistake, girl." I said. The voice that was coming from my lips was not my own. It was deeper, angrier, filled with murderous intent.
"Oh, and who might you be?" Odesza said getting to his feet interested. He noticed the change in my voice and attitude as well.
"I am the darkness. I have been inside Skytel always but never had a chance to take control until now. I am inside of everyone. That little voice inside your head that tells you to punish when wronged; the voice that says when not to accept things that do not benefit you; it is all me. I thank you for letting me out and as thanks, I will kill you both quickly." The voice said.
"We will see if you can back up your claims." Odesza said taking an axe off the wall. He never used weapons training us because these weapons were meant for death and would cleave a head straight off the neck if attacks were landed. Lion looked at me with disbelief as well as annoyance hearing my claim. If I had any chance of scavenging our relationship before this, it was gone now.
Odesza surged forward with a calculated elbow to my ribs and punch to my abdomen but the one controlling my body stepped back to avoid the elbow before spinning to avoid the punch. It was like poetry in motion, this thing's moves from my body.
"Oh, it seems you know a little something in the way of fighting. That is good. I was just hoping you would not disappoint me." Odesza said tauntingly. To my surprise, it did not seem to phase this thing.
"I am not as quick to jump the gun as Skytel was. It is going to take a lot more than that to get to me." The voice said as he threw an knee up towards Odesza's jaw. The trainer blocked it with ease pushing his hands down on my knee but the creature was expecting this counter as he laid his hands on top of Odesza's before throwing his other knee in the air. This one landed clean on Odesza's chin as it sent him sprawling across the ground.
"It seems I may have to get a little serious." Odesza said wiping blood from his mouth. The thing got down into a stance I had never seen before. It was like the stance from that very old cartoon, Avatar: the first air bender with the earth bender's fist above his head and other hand across his stomach. Odesza ran forward full speed, which was much faster than I could react to normally, to swing the axe around meant to kill me but the thing threw a powerful kick right into the hilt of the axe to stop the attack.
Without pulling his leg back, he threw another kick this time toward Odesza's leg. Odesza checked it which made the thing fall forward but as he did, he locked my hands together to swing like a club. He hit Odesza square in the chest sending him stumbling backwards. My body jumped in the air to hit Odesza with a beautiful tornado kick but on connection Odesza's arms were blocking his face and took the brunt of the attack.
While it did not have the intended effect, it did send the trainer sliding across the ground. The thing turned my eyes from Odesza to Lion. She was standing in fear watching me beat the all-powerful trainer. No one, to our knowledge, had ever even come close to beating Odesza but now he was just getting slammed around. Even though I could see the fear clearly in her face, she still never stopped standing her ground.
As we looked back to Odesza, he threw the axe away and picked up two short swords. We stood there waiting to see what he would do next. He threw one of the swords but the thing turned our head and bit into the hilt of the sword catching it mid air. With a hard jerk of my head, we slammed the end into the blade of the sword Odesza was still holding. This small move caused Odesza to misaim and start moving to the ground. As his hands passed my body, he threw a kick toward my head but it was blocked effortlessly by the thing in me.
"Cheeky move, that was." The voice said after we stopped sliding backwards. As I turned my head towards Lion, the thing said, "Do not think I have forgotten about you, bitch." In a blur of speed, the thing lunged us forward and threw three claws in quick succession. It was so fast, I could not see what happened but it became obvious looking at Odesza standing a good distance away with three sets of claw marks across his torso.
This was an oddly one sided fight as my body threw attacks, and Odesza was met with miserable failure at everything he tried to do. The thing pushed our body forward in a crouch before shifting our weight onto our hands and kicking in a circle, like a windmill, catching Odesza's legs making him fall over. Before he could hit the ground, we kicked him in the ribs, then chest, then face sending him flying away.
"He is not even a challenge. Let us see what you have hidden for us." The voice said towards Lion. As I walked towards her, Odesza stood back up and threw himself in between us. He was badly bruised from fighting but that did not stop his will.
"Go get the princes. Tell them Skytel has lost all reasoning. SOS." Odesza said to the girl before weakly putting his arms up to guard himself. Lion was frozen in place from fear, though, and did not move.
"Now!" Odesza screamed to her. She snapped out of it and took off towards the princes. The voice had nothing but ill will and murderous intent as it did not plan on letting her go.
"Do you really think I am going to let you out of here? I will kill you both." The voice said as it effortlessly kicked Odesza away and rushed to Lion. Before I could see what was happening, we were on her punching her square in the side. In a moment of slow motion, I could see her face contort in pain and her body wrap around my fist.
Lion was lying on the ground crying in pain from the force. That did not seem to concern the thing as he walked over to finish her but Odesza jumped forward and wrapped his arms around my waist trying to stop us.
"I cannot hold him for long. Take this chance and go!" Odesza pleaded to Lion. She stood up holding her ribs at his words and continued to the door. The girl got out of there pretty fast but with only a badly beaten Odesza and me in the room, things did not look good for him.
"That was a terrible mistake. Now you will suffer in her place." The voice said sadistically before elbowing down into his spine. The trainer collapsed on the ground onto his hands and knees. In an incredible showing of brute strength, the thing picked the trainer up and threw him up and over our head straight into the opposite wall. The opposite wall was well over fifty meters away so throwing anything that distance was impressive but a full body was just shocking.
I could hear footsteps quickly approaching the armory as I walked forward. It sounded to be at least six people which I guessed were the princes and some of the guards.
"Well consider yourself lucky today as it seems this is where our fun ends." The voice said before turning his attention to the doorway. He pulled our arms up slightly and waited for the door to open. The instant it started shifting, we sprinted forward. As the first guards stepped through the doorway, we kicked the door full force, sending it directly into his body. The guard was dazed but not unconscious as I expected him to be.
"Oh, you are quite the durable one, aren't you?" The voice said before grabbing the guard's arm and slicing clean through muscle and tendon. The others pushed his bleeding body through the doorway to see what was going on. I held his arm as the guard held the stump trying to stop the bleeding. The thing in me jumped back to let the others through. The guards came first followed immediately by all of the princes.
"Take him and the girl to the medical ward. We will take care of the rogue vampire. Hurry!" Hideki screamed to the other guards. They did as instructed quickly and took their exit. The princes looked towards Odesza and saw the bad shape he was in.
"Formation four!" Hoison said before the other princes starting moving strategically to surround me. They took me as a serious threat after seeing how the trainer was beaten. Even among the princes, Odesza was a far better fighter than any one of them alone.
The thing carefully measured what he thought would happen next as the princes slowly started closing the distance between us. It was very tactically genius and measured what it thought was the best strategy before making any moves.
Hideki threw a blade towards us, which was evaded effortlessly but instead of following it up, like we thought, Hoison came forward and grabbed both of our arms to restrain us. He was slightly stronger than we were so him holding us paused any plans the thing may have had. Hoison and the other prince leapt forward and hit us with a clean four hit combo to the torso before the other prince rolled our neck around knocking us unconscious.
"It seems we have some interesting opponents here. We will talk again in the future, boy." The voice said before sinking into the darkness of unconscious. I tried calling out to him from inside the dark but was met with no answer. It was gone, at least for now.