"They have this crazy bet. You won't believe it. That lazy bum Patty actually challenged THE Professor Wraithborne that at the end of the week, Grammo would be able to impress the whole classroom with his singing or else they'll both be expelled! Can you believe it? That deaf tone Grammo! How stupid can he be to take this bet?"
Jack walked into Griff's magnificent mansion in a private land isolated from every cluttered building in the city. It was so large that they needed at least a hundred employees working 24/7 to clean the whole building. With the kind of wealth they had and the power passed down to him, sometimes Jack wondered why Griff even attended school in the first place. If it was him, he would just focus on training to be the successor of his father's judo company.
Oh to be that powerful and influential, Jack dreamed. Not to mention the money. Oh the money. They were using 15% pure Kores just to power their lamp posts to light up a statue of the Great Sunny Sunverk depicting his victory against some Deviants. Talk about lavish. That was enough energy for one household's monthly electric supply, or an all-season bleacher pass at the National Basketball Competition, or enough to buy one of the latest phones that has an in-built object materializer. And to think they would just use it as a glorified battery.
He remembered to reign in his envy. It might not look like it, but there must be at least 10 martial artists lurking in the shadows and observing everything he did. They weren't a nation-level bodyguard company for nothing.
Griff himself was trained by The Great Sonny Sunverk. He could sniff out a rival just from instincts alone, a great characteristic to have for him to be able to compete in the business of security. Stay on his good side, thought Jack to himself.
"Can you believe it?"
Griff was wearing his casual jogging pants and long sleeves. Clearly, he had no plans to go to school today. He had been a bit down in the dumps lately starting from when he had that small altercation with Patty. He used to never allow that kind of disrespect to come his way, taught to him directly by his magnificent father. If they looked at him wrong, Griff used to leave a burning scar on their face. If they said something wrong at him, Griff let them inhale burning smoke. But strangely, he didn't do anything against Patty. He let him go. In fact, Griff was the one who backed away.
"So?"
"What do you mean, Griff?"
"So? What do I care about that lazy ass?"
Jack was astounded at Griff's nonchalant response. What happened to his fireâ€"his anger? Was there something wrong with him? He rushed here to give him an opportunity to fight back against Patty and Grammo, but instead, Griff just looked unconcerned about this situation.
Does he not understand that his pride was on the line? If people found out that Griff could be disrespected and get away with it, then people would think they had gone soft. And what would happen after that? People would challenge their authority and start to fight back. That cannot happen. Jack loved the superiority that came with being friends with one of the most powerful people in their batch.
"They insulted you. They undermined your strength. They disrespected your whole identity. You have no choice but to fight them back or else you'll prove them right."
"I don't care," Griff lied. He could still remember the moment when Patty had the
Jack was starting to get angry at Griff. What would it take for him to finally snap and get furious?
"You know what they will see if the direct inheritor of the Great Sonny Sunverk was a spineless bastard who doesn't want to get back at his enemies? They will see that the Sunverk Dojo has lost its footing. They will smell weakness and they will pounce. They will think that your father doesn't have what it takes to raise a successor. The whole world will think that the Sunverk Dojo—"
"--Stop." Griff grabbed Jack's collar and pulled him closer. "They fought with me. They didn't fight with my father or his company. Don't bring him into this. If he hears about this…I don't want him to fight my battles for me."
Jack smiled. He successfully riled him up. Now there was the anger he wanted to see.
But then all of a sudden, the whole temperature of the world seemed to drop with a freezing wind. They felt the blistering cold in their skin, piercing through the organs, the bones, the heart…the soul. A strong gravity pushed down their instinctual fight or flight response from this life or death threat that suddenly imposed upon them. They couldn't move from the cold, they couldn't react from the gravity.
Griff's face immediately frowned. He experienced this chill from the depths of hell millions of times to know that one of the most terrifying and intimidating men in the entire nation has shown his presence.
People wrongly assume that just because his father was famous for his fiery power and explosive personality, he was also warm and hot as a character. But they couldn't be more wrong. He learned early in life that if he missed one workout session or pass out before completing a practice, then he would truly learn what it would mean to have the absence of fire. It's because Sonny Sunverk had an absolute mastery over his own fire that he was able to show the coldest of the cold. After all, what is cold but just the absence of heat.
Griff had his whole life to get used to this presence, but this was the first time Jack felt the true raw power of someone that was truly powerful. His face was devoid of any color. His cheeks were sunken, his lips dried, and his eyes seemed dead like a fish. His body couldn't handle the unfamiliar absence of his own body heat as it shivered from the loneliness. His knees were clacking and it wouldn't be long until he couldn't even hold his own body weight.
If his mind weren't frozen from fear, he would be regretting his words. He shouldn't have talked about the Great Sonny Sunverk.
"That's enough, father. He didn't do anything."
"I'm not mad at him." His voice could only be compared to a thin blue flame that towered the sky. It might not have been the most menacing of fires, but there was a serenity in it that gave it a cold and calculating danger that should not be ignored. And if you were to mistake a blue flame to be less scorching as a bright red flame, then your family would pay the price as they receive your body in an urn.
A heavy hand landed on Griff's shoulders. "Have I told you the story about the mouse and the bear?"
Griff stayed silent. The cloth on his long sleeved shirt started to burn from the scorching hand.
"There once was a bear who lived in his forest. He foraged the rivers for savory fish and he hunted the forests for other predators. But then one day, a mouse came to his den searching for shelter in the rain. It stayed in its own corner, afraid to annoy the bear into killing it. The bear, knowing that it could kill the mouse at any moment, let the mouse stay in his den because he felt that it was beneath him to deal with an inferior creature like that. Do you know what happened next?"
He didn't answer. It wasn't a question.
"The mouse, like any other, got confident as the days passed. It suddenly got the idea, 'what if I become the king of the forest?'. The mouse waited and waited until it was winter when the bear was in hibernation. It was then that it enacted its plan, biting into the fur slowly, burrowing its way until it reached the flesh and organs with the bear none the wiser."
Sonny Sunverk forcefully turned his son's body to face him. "You will be my successor. You must learn to kill all of your enemies, no matter how weak or strong they are before they even have a chance to attack."
"I don't want to be your successor!" Griff had enough. "The Sunverk Dojo is your dream, not mine. Power, Power, Power, that is all you talk about. I hate it. Why do I have to follow what you want? Why can't I—"
SLAP
Griff couldn't even finish the sentence as a neck-breaking slap interrupted his burst of anger. A blue flame rose up behind Sonny Sunverk's tall build and took on the shape of a monster. The chilling cold suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a scorching heat that would instantly boil all the moisture out of anyone near him.
"Stop that nonsense at once! You are my son! I have raised you to become the greatest Martial God, not this…this…pathetic display of a child. You are Power. Not Fame and especially not Money. Money is our enemy, remember that!"
"Money is my dream…" Griff forced the words out of his mouth. It was hoarse. His mouth and throat was parched of water and moisture.
"Don't be ridiculous. Why are you still being stubborn about this? I thought you had outgrown this. Do not be obstinate."
Sonny Sunverk couldn't take this any longer and a blue flame engulfed him until his whole body disappeared, only leaving ashes in his wake. He left Griff alone to atone and think properly before his anger got the best of him.
Griff's face was full of anger and hate. His previous nonchalant and indifferent expression was nowhere to be seen. He wanted to vent his anger, and he wanted to vent it now. He looked back to Jack and said to him;
"Where's Patty now?"