The Species of Power [Draft 1]

Chapter 18

For a week they waited. After telling Eryx every single bit of information, he thanked them and left, and nobody had seen him since. Ruth began to feel concerned, but with nothing more for her to do, she spent most of her time in the palace's training facility; teaching Mark and Margaret a little bit about self defense. Ruth didn't see much of Samia and Hero, Ruth guessed they were spending time with their families, and they were always in areas that were off limits to them.

After a long day of training, Mark and Margaret went to bed pretty early in the evening, but Ruth decided to stay up for a while. She needed to burn off some extra energy, and hopefully rage for a while. Ruth set up one of the practise dummies and began punching. She punched it with everything she had, and then she nailed the dummy's jaw with a strong kick. Ruth rolled her eyes as the dummy's head fell off its body and rolled away across the floor. 

"You need to stop breaking the dummies Ruth," said Eryx, as crossed the training floor. "Soldiers actually need to train with those."

"I need something to practise with," said Ruth. "Unless you have something less breakable, the soldiers are out of luck."

"I have something less breakable," said Eryx. "Me."

Ruth raised her eyebrows at him; he didn't look like he was joking.

"You can fight?" said Ruth.

"I guess you'll be the judge of that," said Eryx. He stood across from Ruth on the training floor, his eyes focussed on Ruth and his feet planted. 

"Okay," said Ruth. "Ladies first."

Ruth ran towards him and pounced; aiming for the throat. He immediately dodged and Ruth broke out of the pounce while landing with a somersault. This time, Eryx went for the attack. He burst into a sprint and then slid feet first, hoping to get Ruth in the knees. Ruth jumped up with enough air for him to slide by her. When he was on his feet, Ruth began performing a series of kicks, which Eryx never stopped blocking. After he could tell Ruth lost some energy, he grabbed Ruth's ankle in mid kick and pushed her down, causing her to lose balance. 

Ruth looked up at Eryx from the ground; he had a big cocky grin spread across his face. Alright, thought Ruth as she pushed herself up. Let's see if you can handle this. Ruth let the murder rage take over. With impossible speed she attacked him with high kicks and low kicks which he was surprisingly able to block. Ruth paused long enough for him to see the smirk on her face; she then began to run around him in a circle. She went faster with every lap, not stopping until he was dizzy. When the moment was right she tackled him to the ground. She stood up and put her foot on his chest. Ruth took deep breaths as the murder rage calmed inside of her, she didn't look at Eryx until she heard him chuckle. 

"What?" Ruth said as she stepped away from him. "What is so funny?"

"Nothing," said Eryx as he stood up. "However, a lot of things are shocking."

"How?" said Ruth. "I'm sure at some point in your life you've seen a Child of Rage in action."

"Oh I have," said Eryx. "But nobody like you Ruth. You can actually control your rage, which is very fascinating..."

"Why are you even here right now?" said Ruth. "We hear nothing for a week, and suddenly you feel like going for some late night training? What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you," said Eryx. "I wanted to see if you could handle what I am about to throw at you, and I think you can. Now if you would come with me."

Eryx left and Ruth followed. He lead her down a series of halls until finally he lead her up a spiral staircase that took ten minutes to climb. When they finally reached the top, Ruth saw nothing but an empty wall.