Blind Phoenix

Un-nerving expectations of a young master

Lynn was now wearing the exact same clothes Byur had on with a tight but flexible white shirt. She jokingly teased Byur.

            “You haven’t clearly seen a pretty girl for a long time, but don’t look at me with those eyes.”

            Byur questioningly pointed at himself as if to say “Did I do something wrong?”

            Maria softly whacked the back of Lynn’s head.

            “Ow! Damn, I was only joking.”

            “Then start already, I just noticed I need to take a bath.”

            “Alright, alright. Give me some respect, will ya?” She looked back at Byur. “Come on, big guy. Try to hit me.”

            “Ah, sure, but I’m curious as to how strong I am right now.”

            “Well, to put it simply you could lift a small truck if you tried hard enough. As for your speed, maybe three times as fast as a regular person, nothing impressive.”

            “Well that’s just awe- wait what?” said the young man, surprised by her depriving words. Lynn then instantly disappeared for a moment and before he could see it, she was behind him.

            “Concentrate, I wasn’t moving that fast.”

            Byur turned around and was met with a quick backhanded strike which swept his feet off the ground.

            “By the end of today you will be able to dodge by instinct alone.” She grabbed his hand and helped him up; Byur had his hand on his face in pain. Lynn pulled him down and landed a knee straight onto his forehead. Maria exclaimed to Byur that he should never let down his guard until he is certain a fight is over. Byur composed himself shortly after

            “At least stand properly, like this.” Lynn had taken a kickboxing stance, a style she was best at.

            “That’s really all I need to teach you for now, always go back to this stance when you’re idle, dodge when you need to and never let your guard down. The rest is inside of you, I know you can feel it.”

            Byur charged at Lynn with his new found strength, he simply could not believe how fast and easy it was for him to move. He threw a right hook, two left jabs and a head kick, every single one missed.

            “Good” She said “Don’t worry about getting a direct hit; I’m too far ahead for you to land one.”

            Byur threw punches and kicks like a madman, but his technique was holding up well. His energy seemed to be infinite. He raised his leg to seemingly kick the top of Lynn’s head. He then slammed his leg onto the ground and fired a straight with his right hand, landing onto his trainer’s cheek. Byur’s eyes widened. He had no idea that would hit; he attempted it for the sake of developing his fighting style. His hand then began to hurt a bit so he pulled it back.

            Lynn stood up straight and said “Not bad, you’re fast, but as you can see…” Byur looked at her face, not a single sign of damage.

            “Don’t worry; as long as you punch an opponent correctly your hand won’t take any real damage.”

            “Then why the hell did that hurt so much?”

            “There’s a reason I’m the one that’s teaching you. At full strength, you and Maria wouldn’t take me anything more than a finger. Hitting me directly would shatter your bones, if you’d even be able to hit me.” She put her hand onto his shoulder, saying “Just don’t mind the pain for now.”

            Lynn backed up a bit and brought up her leg, attempting to kick him. Byur dodged it by a hair and saw Lynn smile. She continued with an onslaught of relentless attacks. Byur held his arms up to defend himself. There wasn’t a single direction where her attacks didn’t come from. Left, right, left, right, right, left, below, above, and across. Every time they landed, Byur felt the brute force breaking through his guard. She landed a left head kick and his guard was shattered, his arms could no longer keep together. Next was a leg kick, sweeping Byur off his feet yet again. He was able to land flawlessly onto his hand, which Lynn also kicked. He fell flat onto his back. In front of his eyes was Lynn, her eyes instantly sharpened as she brought up her fist.

            Byur rolled to the side as her hand came crashing down into the rocks next to him, sending dust and pieces of rock flying. He got up and surveyed the area around him; he could not see anything besides dust. He attempted to pick up Lynn’s energy but could not. Even closing his eyes and concentrating didn’t help him one bit. A burst of wind then cleared his position of dust. He looked around but saw her nowhere.

            Byur then heard a whisper and looked down, seeing Lynn.

            “Sorry about this, pal!” Her left hand dug into his abs like a rocket. His sight became hazy as he fell to his knees, holding his mouth and stomach. Blood slowly dripped from the tiny opening between his lips, he could not breath. Lynn patted his back and he let out a loud cough, gasping for air.

            “It’s usually a good idea to not stand in a giant cloud of dust when a superiorly skilled person is fighting you,” She put his arm onto her shoulder and led him to a nearby mat for him to sit on, “next time just remember to use your energy to your advantage, clear the smoke by releasing a small shockwave.”

            He brushed his hair back and asked “I’m ashamed of myself; I’ve got all this power but absolutely no idea how to utilize it to my advantage, how much more training do I have left for today?”

            “Eh, about 4 hours left, so don’t worry, you’ve already lasted 15 minutes. I’m sure you’ll do fine. The next lesson is easy, time to learn how you hide your energy.”

            Byur looked at Maria for her reaction.

            She gave a thumbs up, saying, “Nice work!”

                        The rest of that day was filled with grueling hard work. Byur was able to learn the basics of energy control; how to form a shield, how to fly, how to send energy as high-temperature energy waves and how to hide or reduce it. More advanced techniques could only be taught by the individual to themselves. This allowed new fighting styles and abilities to form for every new martial artist. Battles never grew dull because of this; each person had something to offer.

            There were some that copied certain skills, but such techniques had so many situations they could be applied to it was obvious that everyone would use them. The doppelganger technique was one of them.

            Byur had a tough time countering it; he found it difficult to defend from all sides. He faced up against four of Lynn’s clones. They circled around him waiting for an opening.

            “I’m surprised you haven’t gotten this yet, we’ve taken an extra hour to specifically work on it. Don’t you understand the weakness behind this technique?”

            Byur took his time analyzing the situation and readied himself once more.

            “I think I’ve got it.”

            The four man army of Lynn all rushed to attack him, instead of assuming a defensive position as he always did, Byur readied to strike. His caution was the one thing holding him back from successfully countering it until now. He had noticed that the clones were slower and weaker than the original Lynn. He first struck the one in front of him with an elbow and then transitioned gracefully to a downwards head kick onto the one behind him. The other two attacked him, the one on the left going for his leg and the one on the right going for his head. He easily managed to block both attacks, placed his hands on the back of their heads and slammed them together, producing a thunderous noise.

            The clones began to split into more of themselves; an annoying whistling sound was produced each time. After no time at all, over one hundred of them were present. Byur let down his guard as they all rushed towards him from every possible angle. As the first row of them grew close, he sent a gigantic shockwave. It passed through all of them, breaking several of their bones. Byur heard their bones c***k under the force of his energy and knew they were finished. The original Lynn was on the floor observing him, nodding in approval.

            “Freaking hell that took long, at least you got it. Remember to be as aggressive as you can without sacrificing a good defense. It doesn’t matter how many times your opponent misses or fails to break your guard if you can’t take them down. While you’re busy constantly defending they will think of a strategy to break through your defense.” She exhaled to calm herself.

            Byur floated down and landed on his rear. He felt as if he had made good progress, although he couldn’t possibly go on at this point.

            “Well,” he panted “proud of your new apprentice?”

            “I’m hardly pleased, you train diligently but you’re worse than average. Maria and I completed three days of training in two hours. I don’t see you taking on Tenno anytime this century.”

            Byur let out a grunt and fell onto his back, saying “Fine, but when do I get to fight someone other than you?”

            “You want to fight Maria?”

            “I want an actual fight; doesn’t ‘OWL’ have some kind of tournaments?”

            Maria was sitting close by on her cell phone. She put her phone down beside her and moved her hair away from her eyes.

            “Actually, yes. A tournament for beginners is being held for those with minimal training. Fighters from across the universe come to compete and they usually have at least a month of experience under their belt. You’d get destroyed, but I could always ask Nico to give you a shot at it.”

            Still panting, he said, “Nico? Is he a friend of yours?”

            “Yes, he’s my friend, but him and Lynn don’t really get along…Nico is actually Lynn’s brother, you see. He’s almost exactly the same as her.”

            Lynn spoke loudly, saying “No he isn’t, Nico just loves to act like a tough guy all the time, wearing those damn sun glasses, probably even when he sleeps. His egos bigger than the muscles on my legs.”

            The young man stood up and stretched his arms.

            “Call him now, please.”

            Maria looked down at her phone and uttered, “N-no, let Lynn call him.”

            Lynn laughed at Maria and said, “Poor girls in love with my stupid brother. Don’t mind her; she doesn’t do well around men.” Maria then yelled at Lynn, “Call him already, will you?!”

            Before Lynn could even move a large black cloud appeared behind the three friends, they turned around and before them stood a man with black, messy hair, perhaps in his late twenties. The characteristics of his face were sharper than average and gave off an appearance of cleverness. He had on fancy clothes; A black suit, black undershirt, black pants, black shoes, black sunglasses and of course, a red tie.

            “Speak of the devil and he will appear dressed in a fancy suit.” He had a cigarette in his mouth, or maybe that’s what he wanted others to believe. In reality, though, it was only made of candy. He pulled it into his mouth and munched on it, saying, “Or something like that. The names Nico, how are you doing, bruv?”

            As he spoke a black tail appeared from behind him, swaying left and right in a hypnotic fashion. Confused, Byur asked if it was real to which Nico answered yes. Lynn then pulled it off before Nico noticed she got behind him.

            “Oh, piss off. You never let me have any fun.” Out of the four he was the only one with an accent, somewhat of a British accent. Lynn did not possess this accent because she had lived in America for quite some time while Nico lived in the U.K. He adjusted his glasses after spitting his unfinished and slimy candy onto the floor. Nico walked a few steps towards Byur, his shoes made clicking noises as his feet met with the ground. He took off his sunglasses and revealed his compact blue eyes as he towered over Byur.

            “I heard you want to punch some mates, am I right, bruv? Well then, I’ve got a hell of a good idea.”