Celestial Clans: The vampire prince's origin

Faster & Stronger

October 1989

New Orleans, USA

Normal earthly plane

Valerian stood there totally unable to see anything and feeling very annoyed about it. The 15 year old was going to lose his patience soon but for now all that mattered was to dodge the attacks that would definitely be coming his way soon. He stood there with the only sound he could pick up easily being the flow of the river few feet from where he was. He began moving towards the sound of the rushing water from the river but kept his ears up just in case any of the impending attacks were to come now. He took in a deep breath and got the sound of something cutting through the air closer to his torso than to his arm and he jumped back by some meters hearing the sound of the weapon pass through the air with force and knew he had managed to avoid this one. The man attacking him was a genius and he knew that. He had probably decided to bring him over to this part of New Orleans on purpose, the air here was very clean which would make it easy for anyone with keen senses to take advantage of their surroundings in a one on one fight. The place was totally quiet except for the mild rush of the river some distance from where they were, this was also a big advantage in the case of a fight for whoever was very good at listening to their surroundings, it would make it possible for them to detect their opponents movement through little sounds and even detect attacks before they even saw them.

As the weapon being used to attack him swooshed harmlessly past him, he smiled. Even without his ability to see which was gone at the moment, he was now using all his other senses and had managed to dodge countless swings of his opponent’s weapon in a consecutive order that was actually quite impressive for anyone watching the currently blind teenager dance away from and even dance effortlessly through attacks from an opponent with perfect eyesight while the river itself served just made the sight much more surreal to anyone who mistakenly stumbled upon this unfair fight. Valerian was tired now and wanted to end this fight, calming his mind and relaxing all his muscles so his ears could be totally focused to changes in the sounds around them. He felt the next swing coming at him from above and going straight for the top of his head, he smiled knowing full well that this particular swing had revealed exactly where his opponent was standing and Valerian planned on taking the advantage just as soon as he dodged the swing for his head by a few meters. He let the weapon graze his chest intentionally and reaching out with his stronger right hand in a split second he caught the weapon in his hand. He yanked the sword towards him with all the force he could muster in a second and as he yanked it towards him surprising his opponent and pulling them towards him as well along with the sword their hands still gripped. Placing his left hand on his opponents shoulder and saying absolutely nothing. “I think I have had enough of your training for today Dad.” Valerian said as he removed the blindfold from his eyes and looked straight into his Father who just stood there looking proud. Eric had brought him here to train him and he was doing just that.

It had been the same set of training for the past 5 days that started as early as 5am and lasted for hours. Valentine had ended it quickly today and he was happy about that. The process had been very hectic for the 15 year old boy. Eric would take him to a new part of the river side everyday and then blindfold, he would then proceed to attack him with the wooden caricature of a sword he surprisingly had in the house. The rules were simple, Valerian was to remain blindfolded and try his best to dodge all his father’s attacks with the wooden sword. If he did it successfully then fine and if he did not then he would get an actual beating because Eric never held back with the power in his swings, he wanted his son to be the strongest and he was putting in a lot of effort to ensure that. The training ended whenever Valerian was able to disarm his father or get in a critical strike, on the other days he managed to disarm him but today he landed a possibly critical strike which meant he had finally won.

“Dad if I didn’t land a critical hit then how many more days did you plan on doing this annoying and totally useless training exercise?” Valerian asked obviously concerned by how seriously his Dad kept training him even though there was no specific reason; he had no enemies and was never joining the army so why was his dad constantly training him rigorously?

“This was actually the final day of your training, from tomorrow Michael will be back in the USA and you will be moving to an actual Guild training camp. Probably out of USA. Your training with me is over for now, I expect you to be one of the best at the camp. Everyone else there is going to probably be bigger and older than you, the normal age requirement for joining the Guild is 18 years of age” Eric said before bending and sitting down on the sand at the river bank where they were currently standing. “Don’t be intimidated by anyone son, be the best at everything like I have trained you to be. You are faster and stronger than anyone; you have to always believe that.” Eric said as he looked up at his son with smile and obvious pride. The boy was already mentally mature and achieving physical maturity already after training hard for years.

“Michael will be back after being away for almost a year, how long will he stay this time?” Valerian asked now sitting beside his father on the sand. “Will Christian also be coming back? I haven’t seen that i***t in almost 2 years.” Valerian asked, he hardly got excited but he seemed excited now.

“Christian is going to remain in England for a little while longer; the Callahan family has their ancestral home there. It would be the best place to for him to train. Family is very important to the Guild.” Eric said and watched the excitement of seeing his friend for the first time in years fade from Valerian’s eyes. “I think Michael did a great thing by adopting Christian after his parents died in that plane crash, he has really taken care of him since then. He is lucky to have a best friend like you son, you helped him get over it. You and Michael really helped him out that year.” Eric added now looking at the river few feet away from where they sat.

“Dad what exactly is the Guild?” Valerian asked the question unexpectedly. He had never asked before even after the weird statements his father made sometimes so this was coming as a sudden and unexpected question for Eric who just sat there thinking of how best to explain this. “How is it that I am getting in at 15 when the entry age is 18 and you are so serious about it that you are ready to put off me going to college till I am officially in this Guild? How is it that the organization is so well funded that Michael gets to travel in a private jet all the time? And how big is the Guild that he is always in different parts of the world for different assignments? What exactly does the Guild do, what is their function?” he asked the questions one by one and still had more questions in his mind but turned to look at his father who was just staring out across the wide river. “Why do I have to train like a soldier, a spy or an assassin for all this years just to join an organization that has nothing to do with the army or secret service? I want to understand.” Valerian said now looking at his father and forcing his eyes to meet his, his old man had to say something. He needed a hint of information right now; he was not going to put his life on hold for something he did not understand.