The Silver Fox's Guile: A Story of Uprising

Chapter 10

(One day later...)

"Your form's sloppy," I pointed out, sweeping Raphael's feet out from under him.

He grunted in surprise and landed on his back. He hopped back onto his feet and scowled.

"You've told me that four times in the past minute," he grumbled, blocking a punch I threw at him.

"Gee, I wonder why? If I tell you something multiple times in a given moment, that means you should change something," I snapped, sarcasm dripping from my voice, "Please, don't give me attitude. I already have Alex for that."

Speaking of the kid, Alannah was handing him his ass: every time he tried to execute a maneuver that would place him in an advantageous position, the red head would effectively fuck him over. By the looks of it, Boreas and Alex were attempting to tag-team Ali, and they both caught air because of their foolishness.

"Use your brains, not your cocks!" she snapped at them, kicking Boreas in the gut, "If you're going to get your asses whooped, at least try to add a dash of pizzazz into it!"

I chuckled to myself, only to grunt when Raphael charged at me. His shoulder connected with my sternum, and I felt my lungs empty forcefully.

When we went back to the Sovereign-Breaker's gym this morning, I was surprised in several ways: for starters, everyone actually took their stretches seriously instead of half-assing them. In addition, Ralph seemed to be in a dark mood. I could tell he was using this practice as a way to vent, but damn. He just switched from hitting me with light attacks to plowing right through my defenses. That's a good trick to have on hand. I have a lot to work with...Good.

From that point on, I switched to a defensive stance and focused on deflecting the slow–yet staggering blows Raphael landed on me. While he was younger than my old friend, I could tell Ralph had more muscle on him. In addition, he had at least a few inches on Boreas.

"Why so mad this morning?" I prompted him, dodging out of the way of a punch that would've made me see stars, "Your mum leave scars on you? Thought doing away with her would fix your problems."

"Leave her out of this," he growled, kicking my knee in. I allowed myself to fall completely and roll out of the way of a kick he tried to land on my head.

"Hey, hey," I snapped after I got back onto my feet, "We can fight dirty, but let's not aim for the head. This is meant to be a friendly practice, not a fight to the death."

"You told me my form's sloppy, so how's this for a change."

And with that, Ralph launched into a frenzied assault. He threw everything at me: punches, kicks, headbutts, and anything else you could imagine. I attempted to restrain him, but he was like a cornered animal: anything I tried would just rile him up even more.

I managed to get him into a headlock, and I held him in place until he stopped thrashing. When I was sure he had, ehm, taken a quick nap, I looked around for my partner.

"Boreas! Get over here!" I called.

A bruised and deflated Boreas stumbled over to me. "Tell your girlfriend to dial it down a tad before she breaks somethi-what happened?"

"Your brother kind of let loose on me," I explained, feeling my jaw sting, "He has potential about him, but damn...He needs to put a tight leash on his anger."

Boreas sighed as he knelt on the padded floor. "He's been through a lot of shit, Cylus. There's no telling what my mother did to him, and that's not even taking into account the eight years he spent on a planet occupied by the UTF."