ManBeast - Book 1: A Kingdom of Predators

Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

An underground tunnel, leading out of the Arsenal arena; Manny Drego was alone walking through the pathway, still alight from his brief encounter with Frankie and the events of the Gauntlet. The thoughts of tearing a lowly human-lover like him brought a smile to the squalus Beast-Man. As he continued his trek, Manny spotted an entity walking towards him from the opposite direction. A feeling of intense bloodlust pricked Manny's skin but for a moment; in that same moment, the sensation was silenced as quickly as it came. Tatsumi was revealed to be the entity walking towards him, and was also alone.

"Well, if it isn't "the Tempest"; that trick you pulled during the mutt's match was impressive. Perhaps a bit overdone, but impressive nonetheless. Completely froze the whelp in place," Manny chuckled with a sinister air before continuing: "Make no mistake however, stay away from my prey. Frankie is mine, and by proxy is little cohort of friends. That includes the mutt," he threateningly asserted.

Tatsumi said nothing in return, and instead walked past Manny is if he was not even there. Several paces away from one another, Manny turned back around and shouted down the hall: "STAY AWAY FROM THEM, YOU LIZARD FUCK; THEY'RE MINE!" Tatsumi stopped momentarily, and looked back at Manny. No bloodlust this time, only a quiet sense of superiority and annoyance, as if a dragon was bothered by a pesky fly. As suddenly as he stopped his trek, Tatsumi turned back around and walked out of view.

As Manny turned the corner to exit the tunnel, what he saw next gave him pause: enormous craters in an adjacent wall, fresh and still crumbling from the impact that created them, had come into full view. Recognizing the smell of blood emanating from the marks, Manny laughed maliciously out loud: "Maybe I should share my prey with him after all...no matter, it's time to get the game started...time to tell "a story"." Further back in the pathway, Tatsumi continued his walk towards the darkness, as a faint trail of blood dripped from his tail.

"15 minutes until your board meeting, Mr. Mack," a feminine voice rang out through Frankie's intercom. "Excellent. Thank you, Lori," Frankie responded, and swiveled his chair back towards his window. Reclined slightly, Frankie's thoughts were distant from the matters to be discussed at the meeting. Rather, Frankie's mind was a light from the infinite possibilities and recent occurrences that had brought him closer to his goal. Jules was officially under his wing, a Brother, and had proven to malcontents within the Brotherhood that they would not allow the sanctity of their organization, nor the death of the beloved Stephan Jones to go unanswered. Since the Gauntlet two weeks ago, Jules had also steadily shown improvement in strength, technique, and mindset within training. Interestingly, Jules had not revealed himself again since the Gauntlet, despite his continued improvement. Doug may have been as raucous as ever, but his demeanor towards Jules had softened, thus allowing for greater synergy among the boys.

Frankie felt a pang of soreness in his legs and rubbed them absent mindedly while still mulling over his recent victories. Al had resumed his own training, and incorporated regular sparring matches with Frankie. While Al was a different kind of fighter than Manny, no person better to assist Frankie in conditioning himself for an arduous Fang battle. Still, Al's strength and natural athleticism was prodigious, possibly even greater than Manny's, and random spurts of soreness were enough to remind Frankie of said theory.

Within the last two weeks, Frankie and the boys had spent ample time dissecting Manny's fighting style, attack patterns, discussed strategies for different situations, and waxed poetic on any possible superseding happenings that could tip the balance of the match. By Frankie's calculations, Manny would attempt to pick Frankie apart slowly, piece by piece, to make a show of him before going in for the winning stroke. This could bode well for Frankie's fighting style and preferred choice of tactics; Frankie's forte was controlling the direction and utilization of power within his opponents. If he switched up and could go on the attack early on and disrupt Manny before he could get into a rhythm, Frankie might prevent serious injury to himself and end the fight early on. When coupled with his own Herculean physicality, "The Monster" Francis Mack was of expectational caliber, and stood on equal footing with the guerilla foundations of Manny Drego.