Chapter 30 - The Funeral (1/2)

Balthazar was quickly escorted by Albert and his team to the transport ship in the middle of the night. The ship immediately launched into warp and Balthazar dozed off.

They managed to reach Asklepian and entered Blyth mansion by the early morning of 31st January without any incident. He was greeted by Anubis and Thaddeus as soon as he reached the mansion. They were immediately followed by Salazar who pulled him into the combat room for his usual training.

Robert was already at the gym waiting for them. ”Thank God, I missed you the past week more than the last five years. I don't know if Salazar was missing you or if he was worried by my injury, but the last week was very exciting. My daily training increased to four hours.”

”Other than the two hours, he used to take, he got Donatello to help him for two more hours. Now, there is another guy Lucius whom Walter asked to help me instead of Donatello. He seems to be a very old guy but is larger than me and very quick and experienced. Now, we can get beat up together.”

”Wow. Training got worsened? That is not good news at all. I didn't think that was possible. And you still were that excited to fight in the V.R. arena?” asked Balthazar surprised.

”Ya. Once, someone tries to lop off your head, you would probably be into training and fighting too,” replied Robert.

”They tried to blast me to pieces and then tried to put a blade through my forehead, I still get tired after fighting with Salazar and was more than satisfied with one hour per day,” said Balthazar.

”Maybe that is just me then,” said Robert. ”Come on, let me introduce to you to Lucius.”

”OK. Let me meet the second guy who is going be beat me up, every day from now on.”

As they reached the combat room, Balthazar saw Salazar talking with a large man. He was a bit taller that Robert and had white hear with streaks of auburn. He was holding a large stick and it looked like they just had a bout and he was giving advice to Salazar about someting.

”Hi Salazar, look who is back,” said Robert pointing at Balthazar. Both Salazar and Lucius looked towards them.

”Oh Good, we were just waiting for the Colonel to come back,” said Lucius. ”We were just discussing schedule of your exercises. It is tiring for us and probably would be for you guys too if we continued to fight for four hours per day.”

”So, we suggest that Salazar would take an hour in the morning and me in the evening,” said Lucius.

”I'm cool with it.”

”But that would reduce the amount of time we spend on it, why don't we stick to the schedule of the past week?” asked Robert.

”Cause we got other work to do. We just indulged you because you had a near death experience recently. But this can't continue further,” said Salazar. ”Get on the platform with your long blade. You will be sparring for the first half hour today.”

As Robert went to the platform, Lucius joined sat beside him. ”So, you are feeling all right?”

”Yeah, I am just glad that I am free to walk around again.”

”Good, I am Lucius by the way. Walter asked me train you guys after the sighting of the Nirbaadh pirates.”

”What pirates?” asked Balthazar confused. He had never heard of them before as they were never active after he was born. None of his peers at he same generation as him knew about them.

”Oh! You don't know? Don't need to worry about them anyway. But he is concerned about your capability to protect yourselves,” said Lucius avoiding his question.

Balthazar decided to not push on his query further and continued to watch Robert and Salazar on the platform. He contacts Sophia every night these days. He could just contact her and have her check the name. He noticed that Robert had improved a lot over the past week. He never noticed it during his bouts in the V.R. arena but he had become very aggressive when fighting.

After the usual exercise in the morning, he went back to his room with Anubis and later spent most of his time working on the eulogy. He also made a call to Sophia to check out on the 'Nirbaadh pirates'.

By four in the evening, a number of tables and chairs were fitted into the gardens in front of the mansion for Max's funeral. Balthazar walked through the garden and out of the family grounds to meet up with Rudra and the rest.

As soon as he entered the cybercafe, he was greeted by Nancy who was serving as the manager. She immediately bought him a beverage and offered her condolences for Max's death. It was a very weird experience for him to have being consoled for the death of a person who tried to kill him.

Soon, Rudra and the rest of his team also joined them, asked about where he was last week and offered their own condolences. Balthazar was being creeped out by their concern for Max. So, he quickly changed the topic to how the cyber cafe was faring over the weekend.

He quickly came to know that even though the customer traffic went down for a couple of days after the day of opening, it pulled up later as many were interested in creating new apps and such on the new Samsara technology.

”When is the funeral ceremony starting?” asked Rudra.

”At 5.30 pm.There is still time for it. No hurries,” replied Balthazar.

”Are you all right? You seem to be a bit callous whenever we talk about your uncle,” asked Rudra.

”It is nothing. Max was a moron who got himself killed,” said Balthazar. ”Don't ask. It is best left secret.”

”OK. You want us to come to the ceremony?”

”Yeah. I was stuck up in a bunker for the entire week. I would like to have some drinks and fun. Why don't you dress up, we can get going right now?” suggested Balthazar.

They soon got to the mansion ground and Balthazar took them to the ceremony. He decided that if he had to give a eulogy about his backstabbing uncle, he best be drunk to make it look convincing. He began swallowing drinks like water. Rudra and the rest had to forcefully stop him from drinking so that we wouldn't be wasted.

Soon, more people began to join them in the grounds. Most of them were Walter's old acquaintances who came to offer their support but were received by Robert who told them that Walter was tracking down the culprits. It looked like quite a bit of them already expected that of Walter.