Rise Of The Hunters - Chapter 19

He could see the twitch in Max’s eye. Max knew he had lost on purpose. With an inward sigh, Xun accepted whatever Max would throw at him later. Outwardly, he gave him an embarrassed grin and a small shrug.

Willow pushed through the crowd to get to his side, and handed him a cup of water.

“I thought you had him for sure!” she excitedly jabbered. “You’ll have to be careful of Joe, though. He’s sneaky!”

Xun drank the water in small sips. He was a little tired from all the running and dodging, but not too bad. He was watching Trudy talking with Max from the other side of the ring, and was relieved to see Max laughing. Listening to Willow, he learned that Joe liked to feint a lot, and regularly sparred with others. He didn’t think the fight would be too bad, after all, Joe wasn’t a werewolf.

Handing Willow back the empty cup, he stepped back into the ring and moved to his place. As Joe stepped up, Xun could tell this wouldn’t be as easy as he had hoped. He could tell from the look in Joe’s eyes that he had watched Xun’s actions very carefully, and thought he had him figured out, so Xun decided he would have to take a different approach.

As Trudy stepped forward, Xun adopted the low stance he had used in the last fight, and watched as Joe did as well.

“Go!” Trudy shouted.

Xun dashed forward, towards Joe, surprising everyone, including Joe. He took advantage of his surprise to whip out his foot and kick Joe in the crotch.

Everyone winced and ġrȯȧnėd, and Joe fell onto the floor clutching himself. Xun backed off, knowing that if he got too close, Joe would grab him and probably hurt him good. He hadn’t made a direct hit, but it was close enough to draw intense pain. There wouldn’t be any complaints about Joe not having kids in the future.

Getting to his feet, Joe grunted in anger. Xun darted in, before he had gotten himself steady, and kicked the back of one of his knees. Again, Joe went down. Again, it wasn’t a damaging blow, only a painful one. Each time Joe got up, Xun put him back down, being sure to make the blow as painful, but as undamaging as possible, while dancing just out of reach each time. Everyone started to cheer each time Joe hit the ground, but Xun didn’t hear them.

Joe stayed on the ground for a moment, breathing hard, then finally started to laugh. Everyone was cheering, and Xun watched him warily. He wasn’t the boy, and he wasn’t cursing. Realizing that he had lost it for a moment, he stepped back quickly, but before he could do anything else, Joe sat up.

“I give, kid. You’re really good. You don’t look like you’re tired at all, and here I am aching everywhere.” Joe stood up and left the ring.

Xun stood there stunned for a moment, breathing evenly as everyone cheered from the sidelines. He could see Max and Trudy arguing on the sidelines, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He felt panic coursing through him. Why had he thought he was back in that horrid alley for a moment? Was he going crazy? Blinking slowly, he slowed his breathing, which forced his heart to slow down. It didn’t matter. He was in control. He would survive today, succeed at this trial, be ȧssigned a job tomorrow so that he could stay in this compound long enough to learn the knowledge it had so he could survive even longer.

With his heart calmed down, he moved over to the structure, and turned to look at Trudy. She had finished arguing with Max and was almost to him.

“There are colored spots on the floor, each of you will start on a spot. When I say go, you will have to get to the top where the flag is and bring it back down first. If it is dropped, whoever touched it last will get credit for the win. You are not allowed to attack each other, or you will be disqualified. Any questions?”

Xun shook his head, no and moved to one of the spots. He had already figured out which path he would take. He was smaller than the others and now that they were tired, they would move slower. He was confident he would win, but decided not to restrict himself in any way. This was still a very important trial and him winning was very important to him. The others quickly joined him, but none of them looked overly confident. He had already proven to them that he was more than they had first thought.

“Go!” came Trudy’s call, and they were off.

Xun wasted no time jumping for the rung directly above him. The crowd oohed and ahhed. None of the others had jumped that high. They had opted for rungs they could reach near the ground, which meant he was already in the lead. Not wasting a single moment, he pulled himself up, crouched on the bar, steadying himself only for a fraction of a moment on another. Then he jumped again, grabbing a bar almost at the halfway mark.

Screams rang out from below him, as he again pulled himself up. Grabbing a cross bar, he crouched, preparing to jump again. This trial didn’t seem that hard at all. He jumped, grabbing for the bar above him yet again, but one hand missed. It had been a bit further than he had thought, but he was able to grab it and pull himself up. Taking a moment to see where the others were, he saw that they were only now getting to the middle of the structure.

Screams rang out again, but he was prepared. Reaching out, he grabbed a bar, but only long enough to slow his descent. He bypassed the others as their curses rang out, and quickly dropped to the floor. Where he dug the flag out of his pocket and slammed it to the ground. There was a moment of silence, then a roar filled his ears.