Stacey didn't remember replying to him. He had led her for a walk in through and around the town, leading her to wander around, while explaining his plans to her. Stacey had stopped talking and listening partway through, feeling like she was on the verge of falling apart again. At some stage, they had returned to the training yard and Mr Huo had beaten her down and over and over and over again. Stacey didn't feel like she had made any improvement. She just wasn't a fighter, but if she wanted to survive the battle, she had to learn.
Night fell and she had stayed in the training yard practicing with straw dummies. She didn't remember eating or sleeping. She had only known that unless she got stronger fast, Mr Huo was going to literally break her or she would lose the battle and she didn't want that. There was no way she was going to lose her mind and turn into a mindless berserking fighter who couldn't tell the difference between friend or foe. If she lost control of herself, what would she become? Would she still be her? After her nervous breakdown the other day, Stacey didn't like the feeling of losing control of herself and everything around her. The thought of it frightened her. She had to work harder. Harder.
When Stacey got tired, she lay down in the dust and closed her eyes. Without realising, she fell asleep there. When she woke up in the early hours of the morning, she found that she had been moved to a little mattress under the stairs and covered with a blanket. Shrugging the blanket off, Stacey made her way back out to the lamp lit training yard to practice again. Despite the sore muscles, she was determined to improve before Mr Huo drove her mad.
Fences had been built around the place where the program was being filmed in order to keep the beastmen out and prevent them from gaining easy access to the trainees again, so Stacey didn't have to worry about being kidnapped before the battle. She could practice no matter what the time was.
The sun rose and light made the sweat on Stacey's skin glimmer. Mr Huo brought breakfast and hydration fluids out for her, while Stacey swayed on her feet, feeling drunken and exhausted. A massive headache pounded in her head.
"Sit and eat," Mr Huo ordered.
Stacey flopped and leaned against a pole. Her arms and legs felt tired, leaden and too heavy to lift. Mr Huo fed her instead and forced her to chew and drink. He brought her to a different training yard - a smaller one that was tucked away between the main building and a shed. After breakfast, he forced her to do stretches and walk around. When she sat down, Stacey immediately fell asleep again. It felt like she had only closed her eyes for a second when Mr Huo bullied her back up onto her feet and training began again.
The whole day was spent in a state of bruised and tortuous exhaustion. This was where Stacey wished the days weren't so long. The morning blurred into the afternoon which blurred into night. If she wasn't fighting, she was being chased by a long stick. If she didn't run fast enough, she'd feel the searing pain through her padded training clothes. When she wasn't running, she was lifting weights. She slept where she fell when she was tired. She ate and drank only when she was ordered to, otherwise her perfectionist and competitive spirit was on fire, refusing to allow her to stop until she had made visible improvement.
Stacey didn't know when the next day began. She woke to find herself attacking the straw dummies with a wooden practice knife. Mr Huo had explained to her the reason why they didn't use modern weapons to fight at some stage but Stacey's mind hadn't been quite with it. She couldn't fully process and remember what he'd said. Was it something to do with modern technology being banned during these small scale battles or some ancient agreement? Chemical propelled ballistics like guns was where the line had been drawn. They weren't allowed. Something like that.
She didn't know if she was making progress, but she sure hoped so. It was hard to tell when she was in a perpetual state of exhaustion and performing mindless exercises. Mr Huo had been right about one thing though. She was starting to hate him.
At first he had tried to keep things more structured. After a while, he stopped doing that so often, teaching more by pain than anything else in order to stimulate and train her instinctive reactions. As often as Stacey got a new bruise or felt a blow land on her body, it meant she had failed. Was failing. Always failing. Her desperation to improve and do better led her to attack and start fighting mindlessly, learning by trial and error. It was a pity she was never able to land a blow on that man.
He called her names and goaded her with both his words and whatever weapon he had in her hands. Stacey grew to hate him and his voice. She hated him. It was his fault she couldn't go back home. His fault for not putting up fences and protecting the people in the program from the beastmen better in the first place. He only saw her as a money earning object or a baby making machine on legs. He wanted to give her to the beastmen to protect the rest of the children in the program, sacrificing her for the others. He blamed her for things going wrong in the program. It wasn't fair. Stacey hated him. She hated him. She wanted to kill him.
"You're never going to make it," he sneered. "Look at you. All this time and you still can't even touch me. You're a useless, illiterate, homeless beggar. Why am I even helping someone as worthless as you? You aren't making any improvement at all. I should just give you to the beastmen and get this over and done with. That way we can continue the program and I don't have to keep losing money on someone as stupid as you. If you can't learn to fight, you may as well just lie down and die. If you can't even learn these basic moves and to dodge, you'll never survive the battle. So what if you can play the piano? It's the only thing you can do and even then, you're a failure at it. You gave it up just before you became a concert pianist. You want my help to go home? Only if you defeat me. Think you can get away from me? Come. Try and kill me and see how atrocious you are. You're just a sex toy. A baby making tool. What are you trying so hard for?"
Every word cut into her, filling her with more rage and determination to defeat the evil bastard. Where she might have once tried to run away, now she just wanted to cut him open and show him the colour of his insides. She'd show him. She'd beat him. She'd kill him. Kill him dead. All earlier hesitation was gone. She refused to bow to his whims or to allow him to drive her crazy. She wouldn't be a beserker. If anything, she was determined to win the battle, kill the stupid centaur who had started everything and then kill this demon on whom she couldn't land a single blow.
Anastasia Wright may be a coward and many other things, but she refused to allow anyone to break her. He could call her all the names he wanted but he'd never make her lose her sense of identity. She refused to. She could put up with a lot of things but she was never going to let him give her to the centaur like some sort of a prize or gift. Anyone who dared to look at her like that was going to die.
"Not a toy," Stacey growled. "Not a machine."
She howled when she attacked the man again. She'd forgotten his name but that didn't matter. The fact that he had to use a shield as well as a sword to fend her off now, as opposed to just a sword like he originally used made her feel like he was cheating. He was good at cheating. He was always cheating and changing the rules. He just wanted to make her miserable and watch her cry. Why did he like making her life so difficult?
He hit harder than he used to. She was sure of it. Still without breaking a sweat. The only reason she still listened to his commands now was because he could beat her but she still couldn't touch him. It hurt when he hit her. Sometimes, a vague part of her knew that some of his commands were for her good, like telling her to eat, drink or take a break. He even told her when to go to the toilet.
He tended to disappear when she passed out or when he had ordered her to attack the straw dummy in a certain way for a given number of times. When he wasn't around, she would continue to train on her own or just sleep.
Sleep was hard to come by these days. She felt too agitated to sleep. Sometimes, she had a feeling her drinks or food were being drugged or something, otherwise why would she pass out after evening meals?
Then one early morning, she woke up to stare at the setting moon. Today was the day. Although she had lost track of time and days, somehow she knew. She was sure. The battle would be taking place today.