Emperors War

Seeing the smiling faces of both Vance and Mavis brought a little warmth to Akers heart. It wasn"t just two days ago he was in this strange place alone and with no one to count on. In just two days he had made a friend in Mavis and received a Master and mentor in Vance.

Walking up to the boy Mavis extended out his hand slapping the shoulder of Aker while calling out "Good fight boy.... you remind me of me.... hahahahaha.... that"s how were supposed to fight. You stand right in front of your enemy and you go at it." Mavis couldn"t contain himself after watching Akers battle. It wasn"t just the crowd that had their blood boiling watching the fight as Mavis was fired up too.

"It was all thanks to Mavis"s armor that I was able to fight so well." Aker responded with respect. He meant it from the bottom of his heart. If it wasn"t for Mavis laboring away making his armor could he have walked away without significant injuries? There was no way Aker didn"t recognize the care and effort that Mavis put into protecting him.

"Don"t be so humble boy. A man"s got to stand tall and be proud. When you go out and fight the way you did you have to brag I"m telling you. You have to brag, otherwise people will think yer puttin on airs and such." This was just the kind of person Mavis was. He was a giant man who towered above everyone else in the room. His laugh was so strong and overpowering you could feel your body shake. Of course, he was used to being the center of attention so everything he did would re-enforce that idea that you should be the center of attention.

As Vance watched Mavis and Aker interact, he couldn"t help but wonder what kind of influence this Mavis was going to have over Aker. Since Mavis seemed to genuinely care for Aker whatever influence he had could only be good he thought.

"All right enough of that let"s go see the doctor. You were out there playing around with that Kulga instead of finishing it off and got all cut up. What were you thinking?" Vance looked down at Aker and said in a stern voice. Secretly he was so proud of Aker but he can"t let a fight like this go to his head, how hard would it be to train him if he felt like today"s fight was some huge accomplishment.

"I know I"m sorry. I was so caught up in going through the moves you taught me I felt like it was just a good time to practice. There were a couple of times in there that I could have ended the fight but it seemed like such a waste. Besides weren"t you the one who told me that I needed to practice now while I could?"

Aker asked back throwing Vance"s accusing question back at him. Initially his voice carried a hint of remorse as he spoke, but as the words flowed from his mouth, they changed from remorse to counter attacking as he realized "hey wait a minute why am I apologizing when I was just doing what he told me to do?"

"Ahem...yes I did say that but let"s not overdo it either. While admittedly you made huge progress today, don"t forget what you were using was just the basics. Even at the end of the fight your basics still needed a significant amount of work!" Vance felt like he had managed to praise Aker while at the same time keeping him in line. It was imperative that he did not let his ego over take him. While this one fight certainly wouldn"t allow his ego to grow out of control what would happen after 100, 1000 or even 10,000 fights? He would lay the ground work today and make sure that Aker stayed focused and motivated. The worst mistake a fighter can make is thinking they are already strong enough.

"Besides, I learned something important in my fight with that last Kulga. I learned that those beasts who are fighting against me are being forced to fight as well. While their nature is predatory, they should be free and running wild not fighting in a cage with me. I"m not sure why but those four Kulga gave up on attacking me and it almost felt like they would listen to me when were done fighting. I don"t understand it myself but I want to practice defeating the beast instead of killing them, I was having a thought like that." Aker relayed his thoughts to both Vance and Mavis.

Both Vance and Mavis were slightly stunned. Did this boy on his own figure out that he could tame the beast? Certainly, the hardest part in becoming a beast tamer is having the beast to tame. Typically becoming a beast tamer is a long and expensive process. As is with most learned skills it requires a considerable dedication of both time and money. Resources, resources tended to be the biggest single obstacle to learning skills. The cold hard truth of the universe is that talent alone was worthless. The universe is filled with countless people who lacked any sense of talent that still persevered through because they had the resources to move forward. In some cases, having the resources was far more valuable than having the talent. Of course, having both talent and resources was the equivalent of the old saying "like giving wings to a lion".

Vance and Mavis both had the same thought, "isn"t this arena perfectly setup for him to practice beast taming by force"?

Thinking back, they had never heard of anyone trying to use The Pit to train their beast taming skills. While Aker didn"t exactly know what he was saying he had accidentally come on the precipice of understanding it.

For most people in The Pit every day was just a game of survival, pure and simple. The idea that one could take "advantage" of the resources that The Pit offered bordered on lunacy.

After giving it some thought Vance replied back "I agree, you"re supposed to use this opportunity to train your skills. I was foolishly thinking those skills had to be relocated to only battle skills but learning to tame beast in battle is also a form of battle strength."

Seeing that Vance agreed with his thoughts Aker felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. When he saw those Kulga lower their heads without attacking he realized that there might be an opportunity there. If he could do it to 1, 2,3,4 of them why couldn"t he do to 10, 100 or more?

So, what if the beast he was facing in The Pit got stronger, wouldn"t he also get stronger with them? It didn"t matter that they were trying to kill him, weren"t they being forced to fight just like him? If that was the case then killing the beast only played into the hands of whoever brought him here. Wouldn"t it make them most angry if he didn"t kill the beast? Wouldn"t it upset all of those people who want to hurt him the most if he could do the opposite of what they wanted?

As he was thinking over these thoughts he was being led over to the table where Doctor Life & Death was waiting.

"Get on the table." Just like a few hours ago the lifeless voice of Doctor Life & Death rang out and entered Akers ears.

The step stool was already waiting beside the table so without hesitation Aker jumped up and sat on the table.

Dr. Life & Death began again by cleaning up the injuries and examining them. After giving Aker a quick look over he cleared him and told him he could go on. During this fight Aker didn"t suffer any significant injuries and while he had been cut up quite a bit, all of the injuries were superficial.

Dr. Life & Death already knew there was no problem with the boy before he ever jumped up on his table. He had seen enough people come to his table that he could immediately know before looking whether they had significant injuries or not. The way that Aker was moving indicated that he had been slightly injured but he didn"t sustain any heavy injuries.

After Aker hopped down off of the table he turned as if though he was ready to head back to his cell. Before he could take his first step Vance called out "wait a minute I need to talk with the Dr."
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Since Aker was just headed back to his cell it didn"t matter if he waited here or there so Aker just stood to the side as he watched his Master and the Dr. walk away outside of earshot. He could tell that their conversation was going back and forth.

Whatever his Master was talking to Dr. Life & Death about was troubling because the Dr. was being very animated.... well, animated for the Dr. This continued on for a minute or two before his Master walked back side by side with Dr. Life & Death. While his master was walking with the poise and face of a returning victorious King, Dr. Life & Death"s steps seemed even more lifeless and deflated than normal.

"Aker, get over here and greet your new mentor...hurry up and pay respects...The Dr. doesn"t have all day." Vance called out to Aker as they got close to him.

Aker couldn"t help but be surprised and confused at his master"s statement. He should pay respects to the Dr.....wait he said he should greet his new mentor. "Does that mean Dr. Life & Death was going to be teaching me something?"

As Aker had this thought Vance called out with some impatience in his voice...."Didn"t you hear me, get over here and greet your new mentor." This time Vance called out with significantly more force waking Aker up from his previous thoughts.

Without any further hesitation Aker called out to Dr. Life & Death "Hi, I"m Aker..." no sooner had the words I"m Aker left his mouth his Master had his hand on the back of his head forcing it down into a bow in front of Dr. Life & Death.

What is he doing? How did he get over here so fast? I didn"t even see him move? These questions were running through Akers head as he found himself bent over in 90-degree angle. It almost felt like Vance was squeezing his head like he was trying to pop a grape.

Now that Aker found himself bowing before Dr. Life & Death, he heard a faint whisper in his ear...."Silly boy, just because I didn"t push any kind of honorifics on you doesn"t mean others won"t. Do you know what kind of begging your Master had to do to get that emotionless walking dead man to agree to teach you medicine? In the future when and if you take on a teacher you bow and tell them your name greets teacher....do you understand?"

Whispering back to his Master Aker replied "I understand."

"It"s good that you understand."

"...."

"..."

An awkward silence filled the air as Aker had his head bent over. Nothing was coming out of his mouth. Vance"s face was turning red with frustration and embarra.s.sment. He thought to himself "didn"t I just tell this kid that he needs to greet his teacher, why is he being so silent?"

While all of this was happening Mavis, who was standing a meter away from the whole thing was holding his belly as his shoulders bounced up and down quietly. It took every bit of power and strength that this behemoth of man contained to prevent himself from laughing out loudly at the awkward silence of the situation. Every second felt like an eternity he had to hold it in.

"sigh.... even taking a student misses all of the emotion and grandeur that it"s supposed to.... it"s fine let"s get started." Doctor Life & Death couldn"t take the awkward silence anymore and decided to put an end to all of it.

With Doctor Life & Death"s words Vance"s already red face turned from a soft red to a candy apple red from the embarra.s.sment. How is it that the boy can train in one night to fight in The Pit taking basic knife moves and expounding on them but he can"t get "greets teacher"? Would there be anyone in the universe who could explain that to me?

Just after Vance released the back of Aker"s head allowing him to raise it up a loud voice bellowed out putting a stop to Vance"s and Dr. Life & Deaths steps.

"Now hold on just one minute.... why he gettin to be a teacher but I"m not? Are ya tellin me that bein a Dr. is better than bein an armor?" Mavis said staring down both Vance and the Dr. clearly frustrated with the situation.

"Not at all, I didn"t know Master Mavis would want to take on a student. Of course, if you are willing this young lad would be more than happy to learn." Vance didn"t hesitate to fire back at Mavis. In reality he planned on getting Mavis to train Aker in the future, however he was of the mindset that Mavis simply wouldn"t want to take on a kid who had such a limited future. Who cares if he is a fighting genius, he first and foremost is a fighter in The Pit. How many people have walked out of The Pit in the thousand-year history of it? Aker has two advantages that increase his chances.

One he is currently weak therefore his opponents will be weak. It will take a long time to work up to strong opponents. This will give him years to grow and advance. Even when they threw ten Kulga at him they couldn"t justify moving up to a Spirit Lion or Battle Elephant, they could only go with more Kulga. While whatever they throw at him will be stronger it won"t be a drastic increase in strength. To get to Spirit Lions and Battle Elephants they will have to wait at least 5 years before they could justify having him fight something like that.

Second, he has never had any training. His training is real combat and as such everything he learns will be better and more efficient than the other prisoners. They had spent their lives trying to get by training whatever they could find. No one would voluntarily fight like Aker facing monsters every day while honing their skills.

By combining the first point of weak creatures with the second point of real combat training along with the mentoring of Vance as well as now Dr. Life & Death and Mavis, his chances of surviving are pretty high.

"Good, good, good..." energetically called back to Vance while looking at Aker.

Aker couldn"t help but smile internally thinking this teacher sure does like to wear his emotions on his sleeve. How am I ever supposed to figure out what my teachers want when I"m moving from the lifeless doctor to the excited armorer.

While he was having this thought of course Aker remembered his master words calling out to Mavis while bowing "Aker greets teacher."

Hearing Akers greeting the frown on Dr. Life & Deaths face moved a little further down while Vance"s recovering red face almost exploded.