Champion

Chapter 25

After over ten years with the SEALs, an officer came to him and asked if he was interested in joining a new Team they were forming. He would still be a SEAL, but now his job would be counterterrorism. James figured it sounded more interesting than what he was doing, so he agreed. The next ten years were very different than the last, but in some ways they were still similar. He still did PT, he still had training courses to attend, and he still spent time on the firing range. But now he did PT in civilian clothes, the courses he took taught him how to be a far more lethal warrior, and he now shot more rounds in one month than he used to in an entire year with his old Team.

He enjoyed his time with the navy counterterrorism unit, but shortly after Desert Storm he decided he was tired of the fighting. Farming was hard on your body, but killing was hard on your soul. So he retired from the Navy, and returned to run his parents' farm.

"So that's how I know what I know," Mr. West explained to a stunned David. "And if you are going to become a warrior, you need to learn some of the stuff I didn't teach you before."

The next day David began training with his mentor again, but this time what he learned was far more lethal than what he had as a child.

Mr. West taught him knife fighting, knife and tomahawk throwing, stick fighting, surveillance, counter surveillance, close quarters battle, room and building clearance, infiltration, and how to shoot every weapon in the old man's significant arsenal. For nearly a year, while David worked his way through the process of joining the Army to be an officer, Mr. West worked him through the process of becoming a very lethal warrior.]

The first guy that had charged him was off to his left, the second was writhing in the dirt at his feet, and the last two had paused their charge after he dispatched their friend with such ease. Nodding to each other, the two dropped their cloaks and pulled short swords from sheaths at their waists.

David's inebriated mind recognized the mismatched armor they wore. These assholes were fuckers of those friends he had killed...err...friends of those fuckers he had killed. Shaking his head at their stupidity, he dropped his bottle and quick-drew his pistol. Using liquor bottles as weapons was cliché anyway. Aiming at the nearer target to his right, he pulled the trigger as the two began to charge him.

Bang, Bang.

Quickly firing two rounds from the hip, the soldier ended up putting the first round in his target's chest, and the second into his forehead. As the now deceased attacker's forward momentum carried his body face first into the dirt. His compatriot stumbled and turned a shocked look at David.

Lifting the pistol from his hip and leaning into a two-handed Weaver stance, David shifted his aim to the second target. Sadly, his inebriated mind couldn't help getting a verbal jab in before punching this guy's ticket too, "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to bring a knife to a gunfight?"

As shock and horror shifted to puzzlement on the attacker's face, David squeezed the trigger. Unfortunately he had forgotten about the first attacker.

Bang.

His shot missed wide as his hands were pushed out of line by an unseen force. f*****g magic, David thought to himself as his pistol was ripped from his grasp. He really needed to learn that crap.

Realizing he was caught between two opponents, and now understanding they were armed with magic he didn't understand, in addition to weapons he did, David moved to the side. He needed to get all of them back in his field of view, and maybe recover his pistol. He had heard it land several feet away in the darkness, but was clueless as to where. I should have brought a second f*****g M9 with me, he cursed himself.

Looking around, he noticed the man he had throat punched earlier had not recovered from his strike yet, and the first man that had charged him was on his feet, and drawing a club from his belt.

I guess they want to do this the old fashioned way, he thought as he reached into his pocket for his folding tactical knife. It only had a three and half inch blade, versus the two and half foot sword and the three foot club, but it was better than nothing.

Seeing what he had drawing from his pocket, the sword-wielder laughed.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to bring a knife to a sword fight," the man parroted an alteration of David's words back mockingly.

"Actually, no," David responded matter-of-factly to the man he had labeled as 'sword boy' in his head (thank you Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi). "You would be the first."

As they approached he began to put a little more sway in his stance, exaggerating his intoxicated state. He needed every advantage in this fight, and that included being underestimated. He watched them separate to flank him, and he decided that a risky tactic was his best option. Faking a stagger toward the club-wielder that he had decided to think of as 'baby seal' because of his overly large brown eyes, he quickly planted his feet and changed his direction toward sword boy. That man had rushed at David's exposed flank, trying to capitalize on the perceived opening. David took two rapid steps toward him, flipping the knife in his left hand to a reverse grip but concealing the move with his body.

His gamble paid off. Too far into the charge to change direction or attack, 'sword boy' tried to swing through David anyway. 'Sword boy's strike didn't find his target's body, but his right wrist did find a world of pain.

The reason David had switched to a reverse grip on his knife, was so he could hold it close to his forearm and partially conceal it from view. Most fighters are right-handed, so they train to be cautions of the weapon in their opponent's right hand, and watch for attempts at grappling with their opponent's left. By changing his grip to conceal his knife, David tricked 'sword boy' into thinking the worst result of a failed strike was him blocking or avoiding the strike. Instead David executed a wrist-to-wrist block, with the blade of his knife running the length of his wrist. To make matters worse for 'sword boy', David knew exactly how to follow through with the block, pushing and twisting with his knife to slice a large chunk of skin and muscle off the i***t's inside forearm after the knife had ripped open his wrist. For good measure David added a right-handed thumb strike to the man's left eye, rupturing the eyeball and guaranteeing that he would need an eye patch the rest of his life, if he survived the remainder of the fight. David didn't plan on endorsing that outcome.