Part 49 (1/2)
”<sure thing,=”” though=”” i=”” doubt=”” there's=”” going=”” to=”” be=”” anything=”” about=”” regenesis=”” on=”” it.=””>”
””
Sho told him he'd be happy to show him. ””
”<that'd be=”” great.=”” i'll=”” talk=”” to=”” you=”” then.=””>”
Drake hung up and looked around his empty house and frowned. It was colder than he remembered it was before his father's pa.s.sing. He'd never been completely alone in his entire life, and even though he knew he could call one of his friends, Drake knew how hollow his home would be for a very long time. His aunt had offered to take him in, which Drake rejected graciously, but there were times when he wished he had someone to talk to in the long and tiresome evenings.
It was cold and Drake felt completely isolated.
6:18 PM.
Bellevue, Was.h.i.+ngton ”Alright, we're done for the day,” Bruce said, satisfied with the day's effort.
Nick gasped for air, covered in sweat, and collapsed into a seated position against a wall in the dark department store where Mizuno once held a meeting with the whole of his team. Since then Mizuno and the others had utilized the s.p.a.ce for exercises, drills, and practice. Nick and Bruce spent the day focusing on hand-to-hand combat training for Nick, which Bruce possessed unparalleled skill at, while Nick held very little strength or training to defend himself. Their skirmishes were exceptionally one-sided and usually consisted of Nick taking a beating until he learned how to block or counter one specific technique. Once Nick mastered a dozen moves they would fight and Bruce would mop the floor with him. It was the same if he trained with Strom or Mizuno; none of them ever went easy on him or gave him a moment to breathe until it was over.
Bruce hardly broke a sweat while Nick struggled to keep himself from pa.s.sing out or having a heart attack. All Bruce did was give Nick a bottle of water and the usual protein shake he'd mixed up earlier while he drank his own bottle of the two beverages. Mizuno said Nick was far too scrawny and needed to bulk up. He mentioned something about steroids, but Mizuno also listed off everything that was detrimental about them, and even though he was the one who brought up steroids Mizuno was also the one to immediately disregard them.
”You okay?” Bruce asked him.
Nick failed to respond. He tried to catch his breath or even to shake his head but couldn't.
Bruce only cracked a smile, chuckled, and told Nick he'd live.
Mizuno usually had Nick fight in the dark, (as Mizuno told him he wouldn't always be able to rely on his sight in a fight), but Bruce usually always kept some light on when they trained. He understood what Mizuno wanted out of Nick, but Bruce also understood that Nick would be able to see in most of his fights, which meant he needed to know what an attack looked like to be able to efficiently counter or evade.
”You're getting better you know.”
”It doesn't feel like it,” Nick muttered.
”Of course not, you're still out of breath and you're fighting someone with heightened senses, so it's no wonder you feel like you're not getting better.” Bruce took a swig of his water and told Nick that he was getting better. ”You're evading more, taking less. .h.i.ts, and you're able to brush off a majority of the punches or kicks that do hit you, so it's progress.”
”But I can't beat you if I can't land a single punch,” Nick reminded him.
Bruce agreed. ”Though, you and I were only sparring, meaning there wasn't a winner or loser. In a real fight you need to a.s.sess the situation and question whether it's possible for you to come out on top using the skills and knowledge you possess. Plus, in a real fight you would need to put everything you can into surviving. In those situations instinct can take over, or, better yet, you open up more and come to terms with doing anything necessary to survive.”
”Do you mean like fighting dirty?”
Bruce laughed and nodded. ”You can call it that if you want to kid. But let me ask you something, before you joined this team, had you ever been in a fight?”
Nick said he had on a few occasions, ”They were stupid though and they didn't last long.”
”And they were between you and someone at your school, or with one of your friends, right?”
”Yeah.”
”The kind of fighting I'm talking about is different. You've been in fights where you and the kid you're wildly throwing fists at have the fight broken up after a minute or two. I'm talking about life and death, where the fight is instigated because of irreconcilable differences, because of war, or pure, seething hatred. When you're in that kind of fight, there isn't any 'dirty fighting' kid. You have to do anything to keep yourself alive, even if it might seem underhanded.”
Nick thought about what Bruce said for a moment and asked him how he knew so much about fighting.
Bruce cleared his throat and said it was partly because of Mizuno. ”I've known how to fight for most of my life. I mean, you have to once you're in the military, but what Mizuno taught me was so in depth and detailed that it was almost as if I never knew anything before we met.”
Nick nodded and asked how long he'd been a part of Mizuno's group for.
”I met him in twenty-twenty, but he hadn't begun his project at that point. I would end up being one of the first people in his group four years later though.”
”What made you want to join him?”
Bruce looked down at the water bottle he held in his right hand. He swirled the water a few times before he admitted that the life Mizuno offered sounded better than his old life was. ”How about you? Why'd you join him and his crazy crusade?”
Nick told him about his brother, his life with his stepfather, and admitted that the idea of a new life appealed to him as well. ”I didn't really know it then, but Mizuno really did offer me a new life.”
”That's one of the benefits to those of us who have rather poor existences,” Bruce said with a grin. ”He takes these husks of people and makes something new, formidable, and worthwhile, if you understand what I'm saying.”
Nick nodded and said he did.
Bruce reminded him to drink the protein shake and his water before he asked Nick, ”I take it you and your girlfriend aren't doing too well?”
Nick wiped his mouth off and asked how he could tell.
”I saw the way you left when you were talking to her,” Bruce told him. ”You'd either broken up with her or disappointed her, right?”
Nick slowly nodded and said he had. ”She doesn't like how much I work, er”
”I know what you mean.”
”We hardly ever have time to be together because so much of this...” he searched for the appropriate word and finally settled on one, ”World of Mizuno's dominates all of my time.”
Bruce told him that it wouldn't get any better. ”In fact, that's probably going to be the reason you and this girl are going to break up.”
”I don't want to though.”
”Well it isn't exactly fair to be with her and not be there for her,” Bruce reminded him. ”You've got to remember that your happiness and her happiness won't coincide if you keep at this lifestyle. She'll always a.s.sume you're cheating on her, unless of course you tell her about all of this, then she'll worry herself to death about you and your wellbeing.”
Nick looked down at the floor in front of them and said, ”Mizuno mentioned something about being alone for the sake of someone else's happiness, and that you knew what that meant.” He asked what happened to Bruce.
Bruce let out a breath and said it all happened before he met Mizuno. ”I married this girl out of high school and we had a little girl named Sadie in twenty-twelve,” he paused for a moment and realized that his daughter was only a year younger than Nick. ”Anyway, I was in the military over in Iraq when Sadie was born, which wasn't even the beginning of our marital troubles. Because I spent so much time overseas my wife Sarah and I became distant and over time she became depressed and couldn't stand being alone six to nine months out of the year. I realized she wasn't happy, even when I was home with her, and that hurt me too.”
”What did you do?”
Bruce shrugged and said it was something he probably shouldn't have done. ”I left her.”
”What? Why?”