The kick was smooth and it caught Victor's opponent in the ankle. The person stumbled back and had to do some twisting to keep their balance. Victor was very good at what he was doing and his snap kick with his other leg caught them in the head. They were both wearing foam helmets with mouth guards in, it probably saved the person's life. They almost straightened out horizontally with the ground before they hit the mat. The ref jumped between them with a hand on the downed person to stop them from moving, head injuries were taken seriously i found out.
Jacob next to me tsked, “He could have ended that differently.”
I nodded. He had set that up about four moves back. That he led them into it showed his skill but, “It got him into the finals though.”
Jacob nodded slowly and replied, "That's pretty common for him. It's where he plateaus normally.”
The tournament was in a massive gymnasium. There were stands along the walls that were pulled out, we were sitting in the front. There were lights hanging from the ceiling shining down on every mat destroying the shadows of everyone. Victor came up to us with a satisfied smile and Jacob shook his head, “you could have done that better.”
Victor shook his head, “That guy was skilled. I didn't set that up, I saw an opportunity and jumped on it.”
My instincts told me that was wrong but I didn't say anything. Victor was skilled and he was the one fighting, he would know better. We watched the rest of the bracket matches, when they were done the mats were rearranged so the fighting circle was in the center of the gym for everyone to watch. When everything was set up there were a few fights before Victor was up. He walked to the center and I leaned forward, getting a look from Jacob, as his opponent stepped into the mat. This fight showed me just how skilled Victor was. He scored the first point by feinting a punch and landing a kick on his opponent's thigh. His opponent threw out a barrage and Victor weaved for his life before he got close enough for a take down. Then it was ground game until the guy got away from him. It was a tight fight with a subtle tension I don't think Jacob felt. Victor lost but he didn't get laid out which was telling. The guy who beat him went on to win the tournament. We were leaving the tournament in the dojo van, I was in the back seat so I reached over and poked Victor's shoulder, “How often are your opponents at that level just a little faster than you?”
“Pretty often,” he replied with a frustrated tone, “I almost had that guy. He was very slipper though.”
I nodded at that and chewed on the mouthpiece of my pipe. That helped me understand what he was doing wrong. “Jacob, we need wine barrels. Big ones.”
He met my eyes in the rearview mirror, “What for?”
I nodded at Victor and Jacob got a thoughtful look on his face. We took an odd turn, Victor glanced at both of us from the passenger seat, "What's happening?”
We didn't answer but made him load the barrels into the back of the van. They were four feet tall and made of wood. Perfect for what I would be doing with them. We got to the dojo and parked the van in the back. I stepped out and pointed at the back wall with my pipe, “Place the barrels there and fill them with water.”
He did as I said but was slowly growing frustrated. Jacob watched for a bit before heading inside and tending to the dojo. Victor dumped the last bucket into the barrel then threw his hands up, “Now what.”
I stepped close to the barrel and lightly slapped it with a small twist of chi. A drop shot up from the center of the barrel and fell back in with the sound of a water droplet. He watched the droplet fall then turned to me in question, “make that sound.”
He sighed and slapped the barrel sloshing the water inside. He gave me a look and I raised my eyebrow making him grunt and turn back to the barrel. About an hour later Jacob stuck his head out and glanced at us, “Still at it?”
Victor had worked up a sweat and was panting. He had burned alot of energy at the tournament and this wasn't helping. I nodded at Jacob and Victor ignored him, focused on slapping the barrel of water. Jacob took it all at a glance then looked to me, "I'll bring you a chair.”
A few hours later Victor stepped back and glared at the barrel. The sky was turning orange and I was looking back between the sun and the mountain in the distance. I am glad the Suneya side of me was so patient, sitting around and watching Victor slap the barrel was testing. Victor let out a sigh and shook his head, “I am done for the day. We can do this tomorrow.”
“No.”
His head snapped to me at my reply, “Come on Sune-
I cut him off with a glare and my voice echoed out colder than I had ever spoken, “You will call me Sensei, and you will not stop slapping that barrel until I tell you to.”
He straightened up at my tone and looked surprised. He chewed his lip and looked back at the barrel before starting again. Fatigue was getting to him, I could see his palm starting to blister from the activity. It was dark and I was enjoying the cherry smoke from my pipe when I heard the sound of a water drop. Victor looked to be on his last legs, he was covered in sweat and his eyes were glazed. He had paused and was staring at the barrel like he didn't understand what he heard. “Do it again,” I said while leaning forward.
It was a few more slaps before he did it again. He looked at me and I nodded at him to continue. When he got it down to every slap I pointed at him with my pipe, “Your problem is you're so skilled you missed the obvious.”
He slowly sat down on the ground and faced me, “What do you mean?”
“You shot through all the ranks in training then when you got to where you are now you got stuck right?” when he nodded I continued, “that guy you fought today was using chi. The fact you plateaued isn't a surprise, everyone on your level has already started using it and you are behind.”
To the Suneya side of me it was obvious after watching him fight someone on his own level. I didn't notice it when we spared because the gap from where he was to my level was astronomical. He looked down at his hands for a few moments then his eyes returned to me, “What next then?”
I took a pull from my pipe still enjoying the smoke then stood up. The second barrel was still there just as full as the one he was slapping. This time I slapped it with a little bit more effort. The reaction was a whole lot different. The back end blew out and splashed water across the back of the dojo along with chunks of wood. When the water stopped flowing out of it I grabbed the top and spun it around to show Victor the perfect circle hole in the back, "that's your next step.”
He looked at the hole with tired eyes before standing up and looking at the barrel he had been slapping with dread. I waved at him to get his attention, “Tomorrow. You can start tomorrow. You are dead tired, that feeling in your belly right now, that is chi.”
I slapped the ash out of my kiseru and walked past him to the back door, “No more training until you can do that. You can help train people but until you can slap the back of that barrel off..”
He nodded at me and I went inside. Jacob was inside cleaning up so I started to help him. He gave me a nod, “How's Victor?”
“Figuring it out. He should be back to training by the end of the week.”
Jacob glanced away from me and continued, “He was really good growing up. When he hit that roadblock he got frustrated. It has been gnawing at him for a long time.”
I nodded and started rolling up a mat, “I think when you get that high up in combat sports everyone is using chi, they just don't realize it. The ones that advance are the ones that have some subtle understanding of it.”
“So why didn't he advance farther?”
I shook my head, “It's your fathers fault. Your brother had too much of an understanding of chi. It messed with the results.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Jacob shook his head and let out a sigh, “Dads going to be pissed at himself then.”
“Its a subtle thing. He could have picked up a book on chakra or some spiritual thing and it would have screwed him over.”
We finished cleaning up then headed out back. I watched Jacob help Victor to his car then drive away, Victor was in no condition to drive. I stepped back inside and grabbed my language books before taking a seat on the step of the back door. Learning to read under streetlight was a pain but I had to start somewhere. It was later in the night, the herbs in my kiseru tasted like some kind of fruit I wasn't sure existed. The lettering was still squiggles but I was starting to differentiate between them. I flipped the page when the person standing a few feet away asked, “You are learning to read?”
I glanced up at Owl and this closeI could tell she was wearing some kind of power armor. The interlocking plates covered the whole front of their body. From the neck down to their waist, I could see some thigh armor under her cape too. She were pretty silent when She approached me but I could hear the air move across her cape as she got closer. I nodded at her, “I can't read your language. I was at a tournament today, I watched a lot of fighting styles and none of them looked like yours.”
She didn't answer that, just stared at me like she was trying to figure me out. I took a pull of my pipe and met the eyes of her mask. She shifted then, “you ran into two vampires. You dusted the first one and the second one brought you to me. How did you track them?”
“Scent. They stink of rot and death.” I said while tapping my nose.
She took a step near me and knelt down. She held out her forearm and drew a finger across the bottom of her wrist. It lit up and showed me a little screen that blended in with the armor on her forearm, she flipped through some menus then brought up a picture of a lady with alot of squiggles on the page, “This is a missing persons report.” She scrolled and showed me a few of them. “This is a few missing people, all young ladies. I have camera footage of a vampire abducting one just a few hours ago.”
I looked up from her wrist to the eyes of her mask, they were large and round, “Then why have you not gone after them? Or called the police?”
She shook her head, “I tried but lost the trail. I need your help.”
I closed my book and stood up. I gave her a nod before putting out my pipe and stepping into the dojo. I put my books on the desk and held out my hand, my coiling dragon staff snapped across the room into my hand. I stepped outside and touched my staff to my lower back where it stuck with a twist of chi. Owl was standing now, I gave her a nod, “Lead me to where you lost them.”
She turned and headed for the side of the dojo. I followed her, around the corner their was a weird looking bike with four thin wheels. She gave me a glance when she got near it and I shook my head, “I can keep up. I am not riding on the back.”
She hopped on and the thing took off with a climbing pitch that didn't travel far. A chi technique let me stay close but the bike thing was fast. Each wheel had a separate suspension and when it got going really fast the wheels closed together and the bike squatted down making the ride smoother. There wasn't much traffic out but Owl led me through the city easily. I could tell why Owl lost track of them, we got to what looked like the older side of the city. Everywhere there was supposed to be a camera was broken glass and a destroyed camera. OWl slowed her bike down to a fast walk and gave me a look. I flipped on my chi technique and followed the ubiquitous scent of rot and death. The place I led us to was a little two story house with a garage.Owl stepped off her bike and i watched as it flickered before turning into a small grouping of trashbags, some kind of camouflage. She stepped close to me and looked at the house then down the street at all the copies of it, “I would have never found this place.”
I shook my head, “Probably not. It stinks though.”
I could smell it from the sidewalk, the undead probably did a whole lot to keep their presence unknown but it was like a lightbulb in a dark room to me. We walked up to the front door and Owl tried twisting the handle but it was locked. She shifted around before pulling out some piece of tech she jammed into the door's lock. There was a little mechanical noise of shifting gears before a little light lit up on the face and Owl twisted her wrist and the door handle followed it. She gave me a look and when I nodded she pushed open the door.
My vision sharpened and something round fell from the top of the doorjam. I didn't understand what I was looking at until I noticed Owl was diving towards it to catch it. I snatched it out of the air quicker than her and brought it close. It was too large to wrap both my hands around so I brought it to my waist where I had some skin showing. I pinned it against my stomach and covered the rest of it with my hands while meeting the eyes of Owl's mask. There was a muffled pop as it went off and Owl watched as I dusted my hands off, “Think that was for you?”
She shrugged under her cape and watched the shards of metal fall to the ground from my stomach, “It could have been for anyone.”
She turned and headed deeper into the house. I followed her until she paused in the kitchen glancing around. She turned left and opened a door, this door led down into the basement. She almost took a step but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. I stepped past her and down the steps, the basement had a few boxes and hanging lights. I reached up and pulled the light string, turning them on and Owl followed me down. The basement had concrete flooring and stone walls, to me it looked like a dead end but Owl started walking around the room and tapping on the wall with her fist. I turned to the wall that stunk the most and put my fist through it. Owl came over and I started pulling the wall down and looked at the chunks, “Runes. Magic.”
I looked down and saw squiggles, “Well, that's not good.”
She shook her head, “Hurry. Those are probably alarm runes”
I tore down the rest of the wall and soon we were jogging down the tunnel, and it was a tunnel. The walls were smooth and covered in squiggles. The tunnel twisted and turned farther down into the ground, undead came to meet us. I stepped in front of Owl and greeted them with a chi powered punch. There was a crunch as my punch hit and a screech as it burst into ash that I stepped through to meet the next one. I killed two more before I heard Owl let out a grunt while running behind me, “Infestation.”
My staff slapped into my hand between movements and I went from slaying one or two per motion to seven or eight. My movements went from jerks as I punched and kicked into fluid movements like water through cracks. When I had made Suneya I had a chance to pick a weapon and the movements with this three section staff looked the coolest. using them as I was now just made my selection more valid, everything in front of me turned to ash and the number of bodies that were thrown at us slowed to a crawl. I glanced back at Owl and saw the horns of her helmet had slid down and covered her mouth forming some kind of rebreather and the whole front of her suit was covered in white ash. We didn't stop running and soon the tunnel opened up to a massive cavern. The ground had been turned into a massive slab with squiggles formed across it. There was a subtle power in the air and a few people standing in circles on the slab. They were weirdly stiff compared to the person standing just outside of the slab. He was covered in robes and waving his hands around in a panic. Owl took it all in at a glance then snapped her arm out, “Break it.”
I leapt at the center and started spinning my staff, it started humming through that air. There was something in the air that tried to reach out and touch me but I twisted around it and brought my staff down on the center of the giant slab. My staff hit hard and split the slab into chucks, cutting the squiggles apart. The subtle power in the air reached a peak and burst, I heard a squeak from the panicking person that made me turn to them. The people standing in the circles collapsed, Owl started walking down towards me. I watched the panicking person slowly pale and turned to Owl where she was checking on one of the collapsed people, “Now what?”
“We wait.”
I shifted my wrist and opened my hand, my staff flipped around and i closed my hand on all three pieces. I brought it to my lower back and swapped it for my pipe, “How do infestations happen?”
Owl went from person to person checking on them while answering, “deaths go unreported and the bodies get sold on the black market. Some people believe it is a quick part to power becoming one when all it really does is kill you,” She glanced at the person in robes. “Older vampires get some mind control ability. It's subtle, that's why they are hunted.”
“So there is an older vampire in the city?”
She turned to me to answer but stopped when someone appeared in a twisting of space. He was an older man with a well trimmed grey beard and shaved head. He was covered in muscle and the suit he was wearing looked like it was crafted by hand. He had crows feet and deep laugh lines showing his age. The guy started looking around the room, Owl gave him a glance then turned back to me, “No.” she pointed at the robed figure, who I could see was bleeding from their eyes, “That's a warlock.”
“Correct, and he is suffering from major backlash.” The man answered, then turned to Owl with a nod, “Owl. good to see you.”
She nodded back, “Good to see you too, Doctor Kathor.”
Doctor Kathor gave me a measured look before continuing, “The power fluctuation sent alarm bells off across the continent. I came as soon as I could.”
Owl waved up the way we came, "There's about fifty vampires worth of ash up that way, do you have this?”
Doctor Kathor gave a little grin, “Ah payment in the form of reagents. Yes, more people will follow after me. We will get these people checked out and back home before the night ends.”
She nodded and waved at me to follow. I nodded to Doctor Kathor and followed Owl out of the cavern up the exit. When we got to the basement again I asked, “what was that about?”
She gave me a glance then continued up the steps, “Mages are like scientists. They study the world and use magic to break it down. Doctor Kathor is one of the best.”
We approached her bike and I asked, “Is your bike powered by magic?”
She shook her head and the bike flickered into view. She sat down on the seat while answering me, “I have no affinity for magic but it is something I have studied.” She scanned me up and down before continuing, “You do good work.”
“Thanks?”
She gave me a nod and took off, the ash on her suit falling off from the wind. I shook my head and pulled out my kiseru then turned and headed into the direction of the dojo. It felt like it was about midnight, and my world view had expanded. I really needed to get the printed language down as soon as possible.