Battered and bruised, Melvin pushed himself up from the ground with a huff. 'This is a lot harder than I thought it would be,' he thought, sitting down trying to catch his breath with sweat rolling down his face.
"What's wrong, my nephew can't keep up with an old man like me?" Grimm asked. Laughing tauntingly at Melvin, like he was a weak child challenging an adult.
"I guess it's time for you to train another way. We don't want you developing any bad habits, now do we?" Grimm said, walking over to where he had thrown the top of his robe.
"Start getting prepared, we leave at sundown and this won't be as easy as it was with me." Grimm said, leaving the room. 'What does he mean by easy?' Melvin thought, laying back on the mat hoping to get a little rest.
Looking at where the bruises were Melvin noticed that they were disappearing quickly. "Well that just confirms it, I'm not human anymore." He said, letting his arm drop to the floor. A few moments later and there was a knock at the front door.
Melvin jumped up to his feet and ran to his room to get changed. "I'll get it!" Grimm said, shouting to Melvin from the front door.
The sun hadn't risen yet but was only a few hours from doing so, opening the door Grimm saw a beautiful young redhead.
"Hi, is Melvin home? I just wanted to see if he was awake. I need to talk to him about something." She spoke.
The last bit had caught Grimm's attention and he couldn't help but be interested. "Is this 'something' a special something?" Grimm asked.
She blushed and shook her head profusely, "No it's nothing like that." She said, stammering through her words.
"Uncle please don't scare my friends; they don't know how to handle your humor yet." Melvin said, slipping past Grimm putting himself between the two.
"What's up Lydia?" Melvin asked.
"I just wanted to see if you would like to come out to town with me sense your free and all." She spoke.
"I would but I would need to see if that's okay with my uncle, he came in just to see me so it would be rude to just leave him here by himself." Melvin said.
"It's fine, nephew, just go out and have some fun, I'm going to take a rest because of all the unpacking we had to do last night." Grimm said.
"Well then that settles that, thanks uncle I'll be back later if I'm not back before you wake up don't wait up for me." Melvin said.
"Now where are we going?" He asked.
"To the mall of course, where else would we be going for an outing during your free time." She spoke.
On their way there they hadn't spoken to each other much, but today Lydia was determined to get some answers. 'Where do I start though, and what do I even ask him?', She thought, trying to get her mind in order before she slipped up.
"The weathers nice to day huh?" Melvin asked, sighing as the warm summer wind blew past them.
"Yeah, it is, so what happened to you when you were gone?" Lydia asked. This had a different effect on Melvin than she had been expecting. Instead of getting angry or ignoring the question like she thought he would, he took a deep breath and readied himself to give her an explanation.
As soon as he opened his mouth however the words wouldn't come out, so he decided to say the next best thing.
"I can't tell you everything right now, but someday soon I will tell you all of it." Melvin said.
"Okay then, well then let's get to the mall and have a good time." Lydia said, smiling from the joy she felt.
A few hours had passed and they were heading back to Melvin's house. With the sun setting behind them it would have been a picture-perfect moment, except for all of the bags that they were carrying.
"How did you end up buying so many things?" Melvin asked, shifting a few bags between his hands to stay upright.
"Not all of these bags are mine, some of this is your stuff too." Lydia replied. They both laughed about this for a little while.
When they got back to Melvin's house, they said their goodbyes and she ran off using her powers. Standing behind the door as soon as it opened Grimm asked, "Did you have a good time?"
"Yeah, I had a great time hanging out with Lydia." Melvin answered.
"Good, because for the next few days we are going to go train in the forest and you are going to learn how to be a vampire." Grimm said, with a sadistic smile.
After venturing back out into the woods Melvin and Grimm set up a make shift camp right in between the city and the mountain.
"Now, why don't we start with some light sparing?" Grimm said, stretching out his muscles.
"It's the middle of the night, Grimm, can't we just do something quieter so we don't wake the creatures in this area?" Melvin pleaded. His pleads fell on deaf ears as Grimm got into a fighting stance.
"No, and if we are I an area where we don't have to use the fake names, I would like you to call me master." Grimm said, striking where Melvin had just been standing.
"You've gotten faster, young one, who would have thought your growth rate would be this monstrous." Grimm complemented.
"Fine, I'll call you master when we are alone, but why are we training out here?" Melvin asked.
"That, young one, is because you will be slaying your first monster and officially joining the vampire ranks." Grimm answered.
"What is up with you strength obsessed people and killing things for initiation?" Melvin asked.
"Taking down a strong opponent shows others your strength and is a vampires source of pride." Grimm answered, striking at Melvin again missing by just a hair.
"If you can dodge my strikes you should be able to hit me." Grimm taunted.
If only it was that easy, you don't have any openings,' Melvin thought. Throwing a punch of his own aimed at Grimm's stomach.
"If this is the best you can do we have a lot of work to do to get you to the next stage." Grimm said, stopping Melvin's strike with his own hand.
"Good, now I think that's enough we're going hunting." Grimm said.
"What are we going to be hunting?" Melvin asked.
"You will see very soon, now follow me." Grimm replied.
A short while later they were standing just a few feet from a blood bat. "This will be your first test Melvin, slay the blood bat and bring me it's core after you have done that then we will continue with your training." Grimm said.