B r i a n
It's been two weeks since Bambi won her first fight, and the more she's fighting, the faster she's pinning or knocking out her opponents. That Richie kid has been hanging around her a lot, which I guess he has no real choice but to. The day his family was officially initiated in the village's center, all of the men booed him for losing to Bambi and basically shunned him (that list of shunned guys is doubling week after week).
Chauncey agreed to pick up training Bambi again, which I was hesitant about, so I have Fletcher and Chauncey both teach her so Fletch can keep an eye on Chauncey. I still don't trust him since he hasn't given us any information about where he's from or the mystery behind Perpetua's intelligence. However, I don't want to bring this up to Korbin, he'd just kick them out of the village or worse, kill them.
Right now, I'm seated at my desk, thinking about Bambi's next opponent for this week. As I turned the page to look at another teen's evaluation from the prior week, my walky began to static.
Brian Falcone, meet Korbin Dumphy at Council Hall in his office immediately.
I heard Jeanine (the secretary), say over the channels. Sighing, I got up from my desk and walked out of my home office.
"Hey Uncle Brian," Tua smiles as she waves at me as I walk down the hallway. She insists that she's family now, so she stays at our house from time to time. We have to force her to go home. I waved back and smiled at her as I passed another one of my nephews.
"Uncle B, I need to talk to you," Vinny says in a hushed tone, pulling my arm and leading me to his room.
"What is it Vincent? I'm in a hurry," I said, wanting him to get to the point.
"Look at this!" he exclaimed, pulling his shirt up and revealing his chest. His veins were protruding out of his body and were a dark purple; nothing I had ever seen before.
"And right here," he whispered, putting his palm on his hip-bone. I walked closer to him to look at it, but before I could get close enough to make out what the hell was on him, Fletcher burst into the room.
"Uncle Brian I can handle this, I am in nursing school," he rushed out, tapping his foot onto the ground.
"It's an online nursing school but whatever I have places to be," I grumbled, walking back out of the room.
Walking outside, I passed Bambi and Chauncey. Her eyes were narrowed as they fought, concentrating. I could hear the irritation in his voice as they went over the same move numerous times.
"Bambi? Are you even paying attention?" he sighed heavily as he pulled away from her. I half expected him to blow up in her face.
"My palms are open see? Keep those hands unclenched at least if you don't feel comfortable keeping an open palm. I just know that your favorite move is to attack the crotch, and it hurts more with an open palm than a fist," he finished, taking her hands and opening them.
"And keep your feet far apart so your weight is balanced. That's how Peter almost beat you last week. He pushed you so hard that you fell and almost didn't get up in time. Keep those feet apart!"
"How does that make sense?" she growled, snatching her hands out of his and pacing.
"More force, it stings like a slap, and the feet thing, like I said, better balance," he frowns, taking her hands once again and opening her fists.
"This intense anger and concentration you have, it's great; just don't over think it or let your feelings get the best of you."
"Okay, okay. Go get Fletcher please so I can test what I've learned today," she says, wiping her hands on her yoga pants.
"I'll do it," I offered, I'm so late that at this point I might as well show up fashionably late.
"Are you sure Uncle Brian?" Bambi chuckles, wiping her nose and placing her mouth guard on her teeth.
"Yeah, I want to see how good you really are," I teased, making my way over to them. She shrugged her shoulders as she readjusted her fingerless fighting gloves. As I stood in front of her, I realized how short she really is, just like her mother. But God does Bambi act like Giovanni more than the other two, she's his spitting image. They both were so close; I'm surprised she didn't take his death as hard as the boys. Sure she cried, but she never really seemed to grieve correctly.
"Hello? Old man? Did you take your meds this morning?" Bambi grins as she slaps me back into reality.
"I'm not old! I'm well-seasoned," I argue, getting into a fighting stance.
"Ready? Fight!" Chauncey yells as he steps back. The moment he does a fist flies right into my nose. I stagger back a bit and she uses that to her advantage as she kicks my stomach, launching me to the ground. She jumps onto my body as she grabs my arm and twists it. I didn't think she would come at me this hard, I guess I need to show her who she's dealing with. As she has my arm twisted, I use all of my force to flip my body over and I switch places with her. Now I'm twisting her arm with all of my weight on her. As she wiggles and struggles, she suddenly stops moving. I can only feel her body move slightly because of her breathing. Out of nowhere, her open palm slaps my crotch, making me release her arm and clutch onto my manhood. A groan of pain escapes my lips as she uses both arms to push me off of her. She comes up behind me and she puts me in a headlock, her foot planted in the middle of my back as she stretches my back and pulls my head back. My back is in so much pain as well as not being able to breathe. I gasp for air as I tap out. She let's go instantly.
"I was not at all prepared for that, I underestimated you greatly," I coughed out, holding onto my neck.
"You channeled that anger! Great job Bam!" Chauncey raises his hand for a high five, to which she ignores as she grabs her Gatorade.
"How long has it been since you've fought someone Uncle Brian? I took you out in six minutes," she grinned as she wiped beads of sweat off of her forehead.
"Too long," I smiled back, wiping the dirt off of my clothes.
"I'll be back Bambi, I have to go see Dumphy," I frowned. Her face contorted to one of confusion and slight discomfort, but she hid her true feelings just as fast as she had shown them. She nodded her head at me in understanding before turning back to Chauncey and resuming her fighting.
By the time I reached Dumphy's office, I was twenty minutes late, not that I cared.
"Where the hell have you been Falcone?" he barked as I walked inside, Neil was there too, staring at me with irritation.
"If you must know I was fighting with my niece, she's quite good," of course I'm not going to tell them how good she really is, I want them to think she's not all that strong.
"Speaking of Bambi, she's exactly who I wanted to talk about," he sighed, motioning for me to sit down. I chose to stay standing, much to his annoyance.
He rolled his eyes and said, "Obviously you're too stupid to see how good Bambi really is. I've been keeping track at how fast she's pinning your boys and each match time is dropping exponentially."
Despite the insult, I nodded for him to continue.
"You're picking opponents that are too simple and easy for her to beat. This week will be her last and if she defeats the boy I choose, she may continue training and eventually become a hunter."
She's not supposed to be done with her fights for another month; this may be too soon for her. I bite the corner my lip in thought. Will I need to pull her out of school so she can focus on fighting? There's no doubt he's going to choose Dominick for her to fight, but will she be ready by the end of the week?
"Are you making her fight Fahlberger?" I asked, half expecting him to say "duh".
"No, she'll be fighting to best warrior in the village, well besides me," he smiled broadly.
"Who is?" I asked questionably, there was no one in this camp better than Dominick Fahlberger, and he isn't even twenty yet.
"My eldest son, Neil."
ωΨωΨωΨωΨωΨω
"What!?" Bambi yelled as I told her the news.
"You fight him Saturday since you just found out about this today," I groaned, sprawling out onto the couch. I went straight home after the meeting, telling the kids to wash up for dinner, and to hear the important news.
"This is bull crap," Vinny shouts as he stands up from his seat, pacing around the room.
"I think you mean this is bullshit," Tua corrects him.
"Tua, go home. Be with your dad," Fletcher says as he walks over to her. She pouts as he lifts her up and over his shoulder. "I'll take her home."
"He's doing this on purpose; he knows I don't want to be a stupid 'baiter' or whatever the hell it was," Bambi grumbled under her breath, her eyes scanning the room, a sign that she's thinking.
"Wait what about baiting?" I asked her, the words she said registering in my head. Her head spun towards me as she realized that I had heard her.
"Nothing, it's just some nonsense that he wants me to do. Don't worry, I'm not going to do it so don't concern yourself about it. Goodnight!" the words spewed out of her mouth so quickly it was increasingly hard the catch them the longer she talked. Before I could ask her more about the topic, she sprinted out of the room. I feel like this is something I should be concerned about.
"Weird," Vinny sighed as he looked at me.
"Did Fletcher ever figure out what was wrong with you?" I asked him, knowing that he's a terrible liar so he'll tell me the truth. His eyed widened in... fear? His mouth gaping a little before he awkwardly coughs.
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine now, just some bad fish I had at lunch today," he smiles nervously.
"Bye!" he says, using his hand to hide his face as he shuffles out of the room.
What's with these kids?