Greetings readers!
What a week! After a bought of bad news this week, I'm hoping to get some low-social interaction and deal with my garden. I need a break.
I have had some time to work more on the final book in the series, and I must say I'm enjoying the way it's turning out. But until we can get to that point, you'll all need to be satisfied with today's update. I hope you enjoy it!
Chaka had sent Bruno and Saita from his planet to a secondary one where he had Bruno instruct Saita on her new occupation. Honestly, there wasn’t much that he had to teach her. She was a natural-born fighter and coupled with her ability to mimic abilities she was going to climb the ranks very quickly. Which meant that her contract would be bided for. He had discussed this with her at length. How bidding for contracts worked and the money involved. He had asked her if she would be willing to switch to a different company if someone bided on her contract.
“Treat me right and I will be your most loyal brawler.” she had said.
Now, as he watched hired hands of the humans looking for information about the princess to roam the streets. He had made very sure that those who would sell information were scarce. It was what Saseric had said. Less than a week after the girl had come to the planet people were asking for information about her and paying a handsome price for it too. Some carried the seal of King Pura but others were unknown, some Saith and others he didn’t know. Something was afoot and he was not wondering if signing a contract with the young human was such a good idea. He knew that Saseric would not lie to him but he also knew that the Lizard Lord didn’t have all the information that surrounded the girl.
“I guess we will have to make due and find out about the girl for ourselves,” he muttered as he started typing a letter. “I may be a lowly Dreg King but I know how to find information when I need it.”
During the days Saita loved every moment of training with the other brawlers in the compound that was owned by Chaka. The place was huge and had several levels above ground and several below where the various people could live, train, and have all sorts of entertainment. Where the planet where she had met Chaka was filthy and full of crime this place was almost clinically clean and there was no open crime. It wasn’t paradise by a long shot but it was something.
Outside of the compound were the sports fields, hiking areas and even recreational areas that could be accessed depending on the level of money you could bring in. Saita obviously had to start at the bottom but she didn’t mind. She was generally left well enough alone and had a room, with a shower, all to herself.
But then there were the nights. No training, no one to distract her. Most places were on lockdown to ensure that the fighters got the required rest to deal with their upcoming fights. The dark hours were the worst for Saita. Sleep now not only brought nightmares but also her family’s sneering faces. She had trusted them, loved them and they had rejected her for doing what she had had to do. She wanted to hate them but she couldn’t. She missed them and it added to her anger. The anger she would use to train when the light rose with the dawn.
This cyclical pattern of emotions was not missed by the brooding Bruno. He may have had the appearance and speech of a simpleton but he was far wiser than what he let on. He had taken the girl under his wing and tried to guide her. He taught her the way to channel her anger using some of his own techniques he had never shared with anyone before. He had hoped that by the time she got to her first challenge she would be more focused and calm. Yet she didn’t and it continued well into several fights later.
Yet, the day he stood at the ringside watching her face off against another Behemoth he knew her temper would get the better of her. Especially when the opponent started mocking her human ancestry.
“Pink thing that comes from the dirt!” it mocked as he slammed four arms together. “Let me make a smear of you.”
He had tried to explain to Saita that the longer she fought the more money that would be placed and the larger cut she would get but she never seemed to be fighting for the money.
Silently the woman ran forward to grab the top two arms and dive between her opponent’s two legs. The acting caused her opponent’s chin to slam into the ground with a crack. She released him and jumped onto his back to place a boot against his neck.
“Yield!” she demanded.”
Bruno slapped his face and groaned. The fight had taken fifteen seconds. There hadn’t even been time to open the main betting floor. She would make her cut for the day but there would be no bonus included.
“No!” the Behemoth rose, throwing her from his form.
“Ah, this may turn out to be a good fight after all.” said the person sitting next to Bruno.
“Generally if someone forces a yield early on it means they do not have the endurance to last the whole fight.” he heard someone else say.
Then the betting floor opened and the numbers didn’t lie. The Behemoth was the favourite to win. Bruno’s one head started grinding its teeth and the other sighed. The girl was playing to the crowd. She had done all this for the flare of it, to give the crowd a skewed version of herself.
“Smart but dumb,” he mumbled.
He watched as Saita danced out of the reach of the Behemoth. She was biding her time for the signal that would let everyone know that betting was over. Bruno milled the thought over of using her potential winnings to bet on her but decided that he wouldn’t. This was not a habit he could enforce in her.
As soon as the bell tolled Saita leapt up a stony arm and scrambled upwards to slam both her palms down on either side of the Behemoth’s head. She blew its eardrums out and it bellowed in pain. There would be no lasting effect but its current balance was already showing the effect of the damage. Saita attempted to jump off of the creature as its foot caught the edge of the raised platform but it grabbed her foot and dragged her down with him. The girl managed to grab hold of the edge of the platform before the Behemoth slammed into the ground.
Bruno heard the wind being knocked from the girl and she held on for dear life. The Behemoth needed to remain outside of the fighting ring for at least five seconds while she remained touching it. She had placed herself at a severe disadvantage. Or that is what Bruno thought until he saw the Behemoth’s eyes roll back into his head.
“Victory!” shouted the ref as he placed a hand on Saita’s head.
Bruno heard the dismay of those that had bet on the Behemoth. They had a 500 to 1 shot that their bet would be fruitful, an easy win but it had been snatched away from them by the antics of an ape. The betting office was going to be overrun with complaints, again.
“She never learns.” came a voice behind Bruno as the stadium started to empty of people.
One head looked back and viewed a lanky, bipedal dog-like creature. His fur, a dull grey was spotted in blood. He was chewing on some fruit rather half-heartedly while looking at the girl.
“What do you purpose I do?” asked the head looking at him. “She loves the crowd and plays them for the fool every time.”
“Put her up against someone she cannot beat.”
“At her current level she can take anyone on her floor.” the head that faced the fighting platform muttered. “My only option is to keep docking her pay.”
“Bah! What will that do? She doesn’t go out. She doesn’t buy food and drinks like the rest of us. Hell, I don’t think she even knows how to use money.” the dog creature threw the core at Saita.
The girl turned and batted the piece of fruit aside. She fixed the dog with a dirty look for climbing from the platform and returning to her room.
“I mean look at that! She fights, she goes to her room, and occasionally she may shower. Fight, room, shower. She has no use for the money.”
“Chaka wants her on this level until she…”
“Chaka, Chaka, everyone knows you are the one that runs the show here Bruno. You may sound dumb but you aren’t.” the dog growled. “Let me teach her a lesson. Just me and the boys showing a bitch how it's done.”
“You would be wary of saying that.” both heads turned to the dog.
Bruno’s central arm latched itself to the dog’s throat and he raised him to eye level. “Leave her alone. I am warning you. Don’t get on her bad side.”
“Fine.” he gasped. “Let me down.”
Bruno lowered the dog and then said softly. “Toma, please, leave her be. I will not take responsibility for what she will do to you if you try any of your stunts.”
“Tsk.” grumbled the Toma. “Fine. We won’t speak of this again.”
“Good.” he got to his feet. “Get ready for your next fight.”
The left the dog-like creature and made his way to where he knew Saita would be resting. It had been a hard blow to her ribs when she landed. He wondered if she had perhaps broken some. He needed to check up on her as she was prone to playing off rather serious injuries and then skipping the fights to nurse the injuries. Walking through the compound he greeted several fighters that were known to him and nodded his head at sponsors. He didn’t like having the sponsors talking to the fighters. They always filled their heads with nonsense. The chances of taking championships and earning enough money to set them up for life. Most fighters were either too stupid or lazy to really reach those levels and the sponsors were only hooking bait for their bigger fighters. He hated them.
And evidently, so did Saita as she refused to speak to any of them, even with their constant harassment of her. Like she had said, she was loyal to Chaka. She was not going to fight for anyone else while she was here. Bruno made his way to her level and then came to rest outside of her door. He had learned early on in their relationship that he had to knock before coming into her room. Unlike a lot of the other female fighters that flaunted their figures she hid. Once he had seen her half unclothed and saw the extensive tattoos that covered her back. That was all he had seen before a wall of pure force slammed him into the wall opposite the room and the door slammed in his face.
“Saita.” he knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
He pushed the metal door, akin to a blast shelter door, open and found Saita lounging on her bed looking at the ceiling. He could see she was grimacing.
“Bruised or broken?”
“Bruised,” she mumbled as she sat up. “I swear just bruised.”
“Humph,” he grumbled before setting a metal rectangle on her desk. “Your pay.”
Saita sighed and looked at the object. “It was too easy a fight. I baited him and he fell for it.”
“You need to stop fighting like that.” Bruno raised his hands. “This is how you are meant to fight.”
Saita jumped up and raised her fists to lightly punch the Behemoth. “I’m a little small for that don’t you think.”
He chuckled. “Fair enough.”
He sighed and looked down at her with both heads. “You are starting to attract unwanted attention with Toma and his pack.”
Saita brushed off the comment with a wave of her right arm which still bore the faint scars of the Vulpine bite. “Bring his pack. I’ll take them all on.”
“They are monsters. Why would you punish yourself like that?”
“Why is it when you are here you talk normally but when you are with Chaka you speak like an idiot?”
“We each have our own quirks.” Bruno sat down on the floor as there were no chairs in the room that would bear his weight. “So, what did we learn from today’s fight?”
“Avoid arms. Do we have to do this every time I finish a fight?”
“Until you learn to fight where the odds aren’t ridiculously in your favour and then you still win. You cannot play the underdog forever. Makes you look bad.”
“I win, don’t I?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Chaka said win and that is what I am doing.”
“In the last six months that you have been here, you have only challenged those of your level. You have not sought to face those in the level above you. Why?”
Saita bit down on her teeth hard enough for Bruno to hear it.
“You don’t like people looking at you. You play to a crowd, sure, but you fight at the low levels because the crowds are smaller. That’s it, isn’t it?” Bruno poked her in the chest. “You don’t want people to see what lines on your skin. So you fight those that will not reveal it to the world.”
Saita looked at the wall, refusing to meet her trainer’s eyes.
“Regardless of what Chaka has said I’m moving you up a level. You are intentionally keeping yourself at the lower levels.”
“Then I’ll lose intentionally.” Saita looked him in the eye.
“I won’t move you down,” said Bruno stubbornly.
“You don’t understand…”
“The humans can’t get you here, there is nothing to fear.”
“You think I am worried about humans?” she scoffed. “No way. There are other things that…”
She stopped and once more looked at the wall but this time with a look of irritation.
“I know about what is inside of you, Princess.”
“Don’t call me that!” she hissed.
“The machine that gives you the strength of a thousand Behemoths. I remember your blows when you fought me the first time. You may be tiny in stature but your strength is not that of a mere human. The thing inside of you was placed there by another and it was not a human.”
“It was.” she snapped.
“Then the one that brought it was not human. The point is, hiding is not going to help you vent. I get more complaints from you damaging equipment in the training grounds than I do from the betting office. Those marks I saw, they are growing.”
“How the…”
“Earth holds a lot of power for those of us that come from stone. Life force flows from earth to those that live, but you, you are the opposite. Life force flows from you into the earth, and the earth rejects it like a taint, so your body gathers it, inside. Like a poison, it creeps along your skin, makes you burn, and makes you scream at night. You think we cannot hear you?”
Saita scratched at the long sleeves of her shirt but remained silent.
“How long are you going to allow this tainted energy to build up in your body?”
Saita shrugged.
“Fight Saita. Fight in competitions that require you to use it.” Bruno frowned. “It hurts, doesn’t it? That is why you always hide in your room. You don’t want people to see that this taint is hurting you.”
“Please, stop seeing into my soul. How are you even doing that?” she demanded.
“I have known many fighters before you and I am sure I will know many after you. I know the look of one that is haunted and you are the most haunted I have seen in a very long time.” Bruno used two large fingers to stroke the top of Saita’s head.
Saita pulled away. “Fine. Do what you want, and I will do what I must.”
“Good. I’ll find you a decent opponent to face from one of the other factions. I think you are tired of sharpening your teeth on what we have here.”
A nice long entry to keep you all satisfied until next week. Hope you all enjoyed it!
For those of you just joining us, please note that this is the follow on book from Fell Dragon. Follow this link to read it
Fell Dragon Book 1
Fell Dragon Book 2
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
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Haven't read the other parts yet? Follow these handy links:
Part 3>>You are Here>>Part 5
