It was unfathomable but it sure as hell was actually happening. Unbelievability never closed doors on possibility. Everyone was in a stupor, the knight especially felt so insulted but he kept his cool, after all there's no way he could pull himself back up.
"He's too weak, he can't get u..." Elder Chloe's sentence was interjected by the little boy's groan of pain. Of course it was outright impossible for a novice to shrug off the punch if a C class knight!
At this juncture, the rubble had been cleared and he was half kneeling on the ground, he occasionally tried to empower his limbs to get up but he failed each time and went back on his knee, try to stand, fail, on one knee, try again, fail, breath in deeply, try, fail...now he was on all fours, heaving.
As if on cue, he gritted his teeth and bit his already bloodied lips, using the pain as a reminder that he had a task at hand. No one knew where the zeal or the energy came from but he was able to stand up after trying for the umpteenth time, he couldn't stand straight though.
"Prepare for torture kid! You asked for it!" The knight's voice reached his ear, albeit very distant, his head was spinning and he was on the verge of a breakdown so before he could decide what his opponent said...
He felt his hair stand on end and he knew what to expect, he crossed his frail arms in front of his chest just in time, but he was still flung away like a ragdoll. The guardian was unrelenting, his plan was to beat him to a pulp, nothing more, nothing less!
Meanwhile Stoneson glided through the air and waited for his stop, it didn't come through though, something far from what he was expecting happened instead, with the knight's speed, he bolted and arrived behind the airborne kid, waiting for him to arrive and as soon as he got close...
"Bang!"
Another punch to his back sent him flying the opposite way, reversed trajectories. Stoneson hadn't even seen it coming, his mind was in a mess, couldn't think straight, couldn't fight back. He was being used as the knight's punching bag, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to change that or so it seemed.
He was being dominated and overwhelmed, so much that for once thoughts of giving in flashed through his mind but he chose to not succumb, he didn't want to lose, all though he had left a deep impression on everyone watching, Godfather Zayn, Rio, the elders and even the knight, as much as he hated to admit it though, the knight knew that this kid just wasn't your normal Johnny. He wasn't a pushover, he never gives up, no matter what.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Punch after punch, the knight pummeled him but he still wasn't willing to concede. Most of the elders now had a great deal of respect for this kid, "it's okay, he's lost!" Godfather Zayn telepathically communicated with the guardian knight to stop it but he was too angered to heed.
With an uppercut to his chin, Stoneson felt himself travelling in a projectile motion, going against gravity, He flew for over two hundred metres vertically before he reached the end of his flight, just when he thought he would have the chance to have a breather before another Humpty Dumpty fall, he espied the knight's silhouette looming above him, this time he knew that he couldn't withstand it so he allowed his instincts to kick in.
The knight felt something was off, so he quickly brought his two fists together and smashed them on the boy's chest, sending him down to the surface of the earth like a meteor.
While falling down to the surface of the earth, Stoneson's body went through a drastic metamorphosis, his hair turned snow white and his eyes turned ice cold blue, his aura soared drastically and his tattered clothes was replaced with a shiny looking armor, all his injuries were healed, he looked like a god.
"Booooom!"
This time he landed in a genuflect, no damage at all, surprisingly he had a way of fighting back. The knight floated gently, gliding slowly through the air like a leaf. He landed about twenty metres from the new looking boy and spoke his mind, "I've seen this before, you'd last no more than twenty seconds in that form, and you took fifteen seconds already so let's see you die when you are knocked out of that form.
It's been nine minutes and forty seconds, and you sure wouldn't last the next twenty seconds to win the bet, let's see you exit in three...two...and one!
Wait, something is wrong somewhere, why aren't you exiting?"
"Okay, I'll help you exit!" With those words, the knight bolted towards the boy again, hoping for a last second clash to kill him before the ten minute time elapsed. "I'd love to see you try." Stoneson's voice seemed to overlap with some other voice but no one knew whose, this voice was deeper and more overbearing. Meanwhile the knight was already upon him, he aimed his punch at Stoneson's chest and the latter crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"Bang!"
The outcome was so unexpected that everyone found it hard to believe, this boy was the real deal. Who would have been daft enough that after the frontal collision, the knight would be knocked back three steps while Stoneson went back ten steps, only by skidding and not shooting away like a cannonball as expected.
"Hahaha! Knockback effect? Interesting!" Godfather Zayn exploded with laughter at the boy's performance, he had won, the time's up. The meeting room was dead silent, no one believed what their eyes were telling them. As soon as one of the elders found his tongue to speak, Stoneson's Deus ex machina receded and he fell limply to the floor, passing out.
Spider, watching from the sidelines bolted to him and nudged him to get up, but he didn't. She stepped back a little and tried sending a bolt of lightning tho wake him up, it worked.
"Cough, cough!"
He stood up to his feet and Spider jumped into his arms, he thought she felt tons more heavier than she did about twenty minutes ago, maybe it was just the fatigue from the heated battle.
"That was frenzied, anyway did I win?" Stoneson asked the knight with an innocent look, his innocent face made the knight almost want to punch him in the gut but he held himself back as he nodded with a heavy heart. "Yay! Spider did you hear that?" Stoneson started acting childish, if the elders hadn't witnessed the duel themselves, they wouldn't believe if they were told that this little cute weasel actually bested the knight in a duel.
The guardian knight, nee Wang Zhi as he was known in his youthful days looked at them both and shook his head. "Make a blood pact with her and she's yours." Stoneson's eyes drifted to the knight again, as he asked, "what's a blood pact and how do I do it?"
The knight took his time to explain, the only way you could be bonded to a creature is to make a pact with it, then and only then are you considered acquaintances, you could summon it anytime, it would always follow you even till the ends of the world , till you die.
To be able to make a blood pact with a creature, you have to have a willpower had to be greater than the creature's, that way, you are in control, you lord over it and it obeys your every command without rebel, otherwise, if it chooses to rebel, you can be overwhelmed and controlled in the best case scenario whereas in the worst..." "I might die?" Stoneson got the point.
"How do I make the pact then?" He asked again.
"Just cut your finger and let your blood drip onto its forehead, if it's willing to accept, the blood vanishes and she will as well, to try it out and see if the pact was successful, try controlling her with your will."
Stoneson took a deep breath and took one of the twin daggers from the ground to cut his finger, a sudden tremor run through his hand as his wrist was slit even before the blade could make contact.
He looked at the blade closely and realized that the blood that dripped onto it had vanished, he thought he understood why so he didn't ask any more questions and let his slit wrist drip onto Spider's forehead, it was quickly absorbed and it looked like...Spider wanted more? He obliged and she vanished moments afterward.
"Good, now clear your mind, make sure absolutely nothing is going through your mind and then summon her." Stoneson tried to calm himself and he sat cross-legged on the ground, closed his eyes and entered the meditative state again, no distraction, no care for the outer world, unfazed.
Moments later he opened his eyes to two surprises, the knight's wonder stricken face and a little white wolf by his side. She was licking her paws passionately. "Oh spider, you're here! Great, let's get you and me stuffed up!" But the wolf cub wouldn't budge. "Spider, spider!"
He gave it a thought and a bulb lit up in his head, according to his hunch, transfer of ownership signifies that the wolf cub's lifespan and everything is reverted to null so that should mean...
"You don't have a name? Okay I'll call you Huntress!" The wolf cub looked up at him and he thought he saw a...was that even possible? A smile? "Do you like the name?" He asked and she wagged her tail joyously, "okay, huntress it is then!"