True Warrior

Chapter 1: Malin

"Hello?"

I turned around. Another fan?! I was sick of this treatment. People would show up here at random moments and want to shake my hand or get my autograph. At first it was pretty cool. Then it started getting weird. People started stopping by up to ten times a day and act like we have known each other for ages.  How did they even know where I lived? The city was huge and I never really left the house. I was also feeling guilty. I shouldn't be praised for this, it should be Liu.

I turn to see a girl who looked about my age. She seemed to be just an inch or so shorter than me. She had wavy black hair that fell to her shoulders. The way she was dressed suggested that she was Warrior. Flexible tight clothes, ready to go to battle at any minute. She gazed at me, her eyes slightly uncertain, slightly afraid.

Oh please not one of these fans. Sometimes girls like these would show up, with the hopes of getting me to fall head over heels for them. They always acted like they were scared and fragile. Some wear so much makeup it looked like they just dumped their heads in flour. This one didn't look like she was wearing that much, if any that is. She was certainly beautiful.

She didn't say anything. Did she just expect me to start talking to her kindly like she didn't show up randomly in my house?

She opened her mouth again, then closed it. We stood staring at each other until she finally let out a timid, "Hi."

I blinked. "Hi."

She swallowed. "Um..."

She expected me to start the conversation. Wow. I stepped forward, holding out my hand, she grasped it, shaking it firmly. She looked relieved that I did something to break the tension. I needed her to leave. My new apprentice was going to be here any minute and I didn't want him to walk in on me with this random girl... no not a girl, Warrior.

"Hey, I would love for you to stay and talk," I lied. "But my apprentice will be here any minute. Soo..."

"Oh!" She laughed. "I'm pretty sure I am your apprentice."

"What?"

She nodded. "Yeah. This is where they told me to come. They said you would be waiting for me."

"Oh!" I looked her up and down. There is no way this was my apprentice. They told me that her previous mentor recently passed away and she already had training, but I didn't expect her to be so old. "How old are you?"

"Eighteen." She frowned. "How old are you?"

"Twenty." I finished scanning her and stepped back. "I didn't expect an apprentice so close in age."

"Me neither." She pursed her lips. She was very nervous. Liu taught me how to read body language. He said that if they were nervous, their nerves would move to some part of the body. It was usually either the hands or in the case, the legs. She was swaying back and forth, not to mention she kept it moving her hand position. She kept switching between folded, limp at her sides or clasped in front of her.

"Okay!" I clapped my hands together. "Should we begin?"

"Begin?" Her brow furrowed. "Um, sure. What are we doing?"

I walked over to the basket or bamboo sticks and grabbed two. I tossed one to her and she caught it, her face clearing as she understood. "I'm going to see where your at."

"Ok." She gripped the bamboo stick the way all of us were taught while fighting with bamboo. Hands an arms length apart. Her eyes went into slits and she stared at me.

Before she fixed her feet, I charged. Her eyes filled with surprise and she met my bamboo stick with hers. She quickly adjusted and with surprising strength, pushed me away from her. I attacked her again and she met me the same way. I twisted behind her, aiming a blow at her legs, hoping to nock her off her feet, but she caught what I was doing and blocked me again.

We kept at it for a little while when I finally decided that she was extremely good at defense, but not the best at offense. I once was totally unguarded when she almost hit the stick out of my hands, and she didn't even make a move on me. I also realized she was putting too much energy with her blocks. Either she never learned to conserve her energetic or she forgot about it in the beginning and it was too late now.

Liu told me that your not worn out until your dead. He used to fight with me until I collapsed. Doing that taught me endurance. I wanted to see how far she could go.

She was starting to breathe very fast. Her blocks and small jabs were lazy, but powerful, once again putting too much energy into each move. She stopped moving around as much as before and finally I was able to nock her feet out from under her.

She tumbled onto the mats, not getting up. She rose to her knees, trying to control her breathing. That was one thing I noticed she did learn, controlled breathing. Putting one hand on her belly and breathing in through her nose, breathing out through her mouth with her lips pursed as if she was whistling. That was good. But she should have stood up.

"Come on, lets keep going!" I clapped, putting my hands on my knees and started breathing exercises as well.

"Keep going?!" She spun up to look at me. "I'm worn out!"

"Your not worn out till your dead." I quoted. I stood up straight, grabbing her bamboo stick she dropped at put it back in the basket. I hoped she took the hint that we were done.

Oh crap! The name. The way things worked in Yángguāng is that no one can know your name unless you are in the family or you are mentor and apprentice. The thing is, if someone knew your name they could curse you. One Hundred and twenty four years ago there were these people who called themselves the Wúmíng (No name). Before then, magic was only used for good and came from nature, until the Wúmíng. They found a much easier way to do magic that took little to no work. The way came at cost and it soon corrupted them. They started using that magic to curse their enemies and soon it became any person whose name they knew. After that, magic became illegal and no one told anyone there names (also after that, Wúmíng became a highly offense insult). The way mentors and apprentices worked was that if they both told each other their names, they were set for life.

"Nerezza." She spoke. I turned she had stood up and was staring at me. "Nerezza is my name."

Oh, she just jumped right to it. She seemed like a good apprentice, but I didn't know if I was a good mentor. What if something bad happened to her, it would be all my fault. I thought about it way too long and I could tell she was getting worried.

"Malin." I murmured. Oh, I just did that. I can't back out! "Be here tomorrow at 6:00 sharp." I didn't try to smile, we could learn about each other another time.

Authors note:
I have never been in a fight class or anything before so I will probably slaughter the fighting descriptions, just deal with me. The book will pick up pace quickly so if this chapter was boring, just keep going, it will bet interesting! I promise!