Chapter 50 #2
“You overcommit every strike,” she says. “You rely too much on strength and not enough on positioning. Your footwork is atrocious. Your domain use is predictable. Your stance collapses whenever frustrated. And you communicate your intentions with your shoulders before every attack.”
I stare up at her. At last, I force myself upright despite my trembling limbs.
“You gathered all of that from ten exchanges?”
She arches a brow. “Nine. The tenth was redundant.”
Ugh! I hate her.
Moe is still giggling under her breath. Now I know why she suggested this. She needed her personal show.
Alas, I am happy to deliver.
“Again,” I say.
Something flickers in Lis’s expression. Approval, perhaps?
She inclines her head. “Better.”
Then she drops me to the ground again.
Fuck. Me.
That becomes my life. Days blur together under a haze of bruises, dirt, and unrelenting critique.
Every morning, Lis drags me to some miserable stretch of Aimaxion for training. Every morning, she dismantles me in a new and inventive way, destroying any confidence or self-esteem I may have had. And Moe is always there to witness my undignified defeats.
Lis makes me spar her until my limbs shake—though she barely exerts any effort. She makes me repeat footwork drills until my legs nearly give out. Then makes me hold shadow constructs until my vision blurs from strain, then berates me when they collapse too early.
She is not only merciless in her attacks, but also in her words.
If my stance is wrong, she knocks me over. If my guard drops, she strikes. If my shadow wavers, she attacks through it.
There is no praise. No softness. No concession to effort.
She only demands results.
And as time passes, I wonder if I have it in me to give it to her—if my luck so far has made me overconfident about my potential.
I may have thought she was strong at first, but after being thrown on my ass one too many times, I’ve realized that’s nowhere near the truth. She is not just strong. She is something I cannot comprehend.
If her behavior toward me can only be called ruthless, how she behaves with Moe is completely different. At first, it makes me mad, some jealousy from before still lingering in the back of my mind.
But I soon start to appreciate the way she always makes sure to include Moe in the training. She might knock me out until I see stars in one second, but she takes a few minutes to explain everything to Moe so she understands what she’s seeing.
Of course, that in turn also helps me understand what I did wrong better—but only after the first taste of defeat goes away.
Moe, the eternal student, scribbles everything in her notebook, nodding along and asking questions.
My ego might be smarting from all the beat-downs, but step by step I start to appreciate Lis and her odd methods.
At first, I cannot touch her. Not even once.
The days pass with me spending more time on the ground than standing and my body becomes a patchwork of bruises and half-healed injuries. Even my improved regeneration struggles to keep pace. Whatever soul energy I may consume during my fights is quickly exhausted during our practices.
Through it all, Moe watches us, laughing every time I fall, teasing me about it every time we go to bed.
No loyalty from that one, even after giving her five or six orgasms daily.
“You are a terrible mate,” I inform her after Lis sweeps my legs for perhaps the fiftieth time.
Moe smiles sweetly from where she sits cross-legged on a fallen stone slab. Her notebook is in one hand and she’s playing with a pencil in the other. “You are very pretty when humbled.”
“I am not being humbled. I am being assaulted,” I cry out.
Lis drives her heel into my ribs.
I wheeze.
“Correct yourself,” she says.
“I hate both of you.”
“Good,” Lis replies. “Hatred builds character.”
Moe gives an encouraging nod.
These two… They’ve conspired against me!
Yet somehow, this harsh training starts to work. Because despite the beatings, despite the humiliation, despite the fact that Lis seems to derive genuine pleasure from proving how inferior I am, I do improve.
It’s slow at first—probably because I still hold onto my childish grudges. But once I dedicate myself to understanding my faults, I start fixing them.
I begin to understand the rhythm of her movements, the subtle shifts in weight before she strikes. The way she sets traps with positioning alone or the countless tiny inefficiencies in my own fighting that she has been trying to beat out of me.
My strikes grow tighter, my stance steadier. Even my shadow control becomes sharper.
And one morning, it finally happens.
We’re back in the same desolate corner of Aimaxion. Moe is once more taking notes on all my failed fighting attempts. And Lis awaits for me to finally prove I’m not an idiot—well, I doubt she’ll ever stop seeing me that way, but I’m trying, all right?
We circle each other in the dust, both of us light on our feet.
I feint high. And when she reacts, I pivot, dropping lower than before. I send my shadow not toward her, but behind her, where it lashes upward around her ankle half a heartbeat before I crash into her shoulder-first.
She moves with it, but this time I’m faster. Well, not fast enough to actually strike her. But my knuckles brush slightly against her skin.
I land on the opposite side of our make-shift arena, breathing hard and in complete disbelief. I…made contact?
Everything stops.
Lis straightens slowly, her gaze on me.
Moe gasps, her hand flying to her mouth.
I freeze, waiting for something, but I don’t know what.
Then Lis touches her cheek, still looking at me.
“Acceptable,” she says.
Disbelief fills me at first, then entire chest swells with unadulterated happiness. .
Moe jumps to her feet, grinning. “You did it!”
I stand taller despite the sweat dripping down my face and the blood drying at my temple.
“I did it,” I say, trying and failing to sound humble.
Lis narrows her eyes. “Do not become insufferable now. It wasn’t even a proper strike.”
“One more than yesterday.” I shrug.
She glares at me.
Then, with terrifying calm, she attacks.
She beats me into the dirt harder than ever before.
But even while sprawled on my back, groaning into the dust as Moe laughs herself breathless nearby, I cannot stop smiling.
Because for the first time it feels like I actually accomplished something.