Page 32 of Guardian's Destiny

"That's it?"

"For now." I didn't want to push him too hard, too fast. I knew some of the trigger words for him now, and that would help. Besides, I could tell he was beginning to get bored, despite the jolts of headaches he must have received, according to his pain scale.

"Oh, one more," I pretended like I had forgotten.

"What?"

"Dreams."

For a moment, he stared at me as if I'd lost my mind, but then his face contorted, and he grabbed his head.

"Ten it is," I mumbled, about to select it.

"Nine," he groaned. Probably just to be contradictory, but I gave it to him.

"Come on, show me how that little robot of yours works." I tempted him, curious to see that machine in action.

"Are you afraid to lose to me again?" He challenged.

"Last I checked, it was a draw, and no. But I bet the machine is not going to take it easy on me, not like you."

"You noticed?"

We were walking down the hallway now, him a step behind me. I looked over my shoulder. "Since you're the only one with bruises, I think it was pretty obvious."

We entered the training room, where he moved straight to the robot.

"Don't even think about setting it on easy," I warned.

"Wouldn't dream about it," he winked at me and damn. I hated it when he did that. It was hard to admit, but his charms were getting to me, more than I liked to acknowledge.

"What do you want it to look like?" He asked.

"Pardon me?" I didn't fully get his meaning.

He moved through some settings on his comm, and the robot changed shapes in front of me. He turned into a large Pandraxian, some alien creature that had to come straight out of a nightmare, an Ohrur, and so on. It was quite amazing.

"Space Guardian, since that's who we're going to be fighting, right?" I was still staring at the ever-changing machine.

He turned it into a faceless Space Guardian. "You could just fight me," he grumbled.

"Like I said, I don't need any more pussyfooting from you." I took on a defensive stance.

"Pussy… what?" he threw his head back in laughter, it boomed through the room and took me off balance enough that I didn't realize he had activated the robot, and it was coming for me until I felt a very real hand on my arm. Instinct set in. Instinct and muscle memory. This was one of my most trained moves—a man trying to pull me by the arm.

I ducked under it, moved around, and forced its hand behind its back. It wasn't as easy as it had been with some other men I had sparred with or even actually fought with, and I applied more pressure until I heard a snap, and the robot went down.

"Damn, you dislocated its shoulder," Vraax sounded impressed.

"That doesn't mean it should go down," I scolded, having experienced men still fighting even with a dislocated shoulder.

"Fine," Vraax rolled his eyes, "instant healing. Are you happy now?"

Another pop announced that the robot had put its shoulder back in place, and he got up more speedily than I expected. I kicked it in the chin, and it kept coming.

"You get what you asked for." Vraax grinned and leaned back against the wall to watch me, and the robot have it out for about twenty minutes. I wasn't about to admit defeat. Never. But with that thing set to not feeling pain, it was giving me the workout of a lifetime. I had only encountered one man before who did that. He must have weighed two fifty plus pounds, had been almost six foot, and was so strung out on speed or whatever drugs he had taken that he didn't feel any pain, just like the robot. I had to finally choke him out before he went down, giving me a bruised rib and dislocating my jaw in the process. That seemed like a walk in the park now, compared to this machine, and I was loving every minute of it.

Finally, though, I was forced to order, "Enough."

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