Blood Bound

Counting Down

It's another show for the 'audiences'. 

The families that were from another clan were given a chance to rest in Redhound's guest house, change clothes and prepare for the after-party, while the rest of the family that has Redhound on their name, get back inside to circle the training room once again. 

Inside, all the trainees are training as usual. One person is shooting, the other is fighting the wooden doll, just doing their own thing alone. All of them were waiting for Alastair to come back after he excused himself to take care of the documents so the accountant could check on the Redhound's account and Alastair could put all of his focus on the trainees. 

Nobody talked, everyone is in their own mind, looking at their own kid to just in case they do something silly. At this point, everybody knows that Silvester's student, Jordan, Kayla's student Selena and Bess and Brook's student Henryk are the top three at the moment. All attentions are on them, and that can only make Dana and Dylan hate Bess and Brook more than ever. 

Dylan and Dana were the best brother-sister combo before Bess and Brook were born. They thought after Bess and Brook's parents died, Dana and Dylan would take the top spots. They were far younger than them, but they were already really good, probably like Bess and Brooke right now, but they excelled so quickly and the name of Bess and Brook rocketed around Hisselia, pushing Dana and Dylan back to the background. They tried to take students in to lift their name up, but so far their students had never made it too far. 

Alastair's steps sound so loud when he got in the room, and everybody turns around to look. He made his way to the door of the training room and opens it. All the kids that are inside also stopped doing their things to look. Alastair inhales deeply and turns around to the trainers. 

"Ready? We'll start the assessment now we're the only inner circle in here." Alastair says. "For trainers, please come in with me, and the others could stay outside to watch. Thank you." He says and walks inside. The trainers walk behind him, and as usual Brook and Bess waited until everyone is inside then they follow them and close the door behind them to sit on the very end of the line. 

"Good evening, little warriors." Alastair starts and the kids already lined up neatly in front of them, and the things they used to train already put back wherever they took it from. 

"For the last event for today, we'll have a one on one fight. Your opponent will be chosen by your trainer. After that, an evaluation will be made for each of you." Alastair explains. Bess gulped, this is something new. She should be home more often, or else she won't even know what's happening anymore. 

"The fight will be limited to five minutes, and your performance will be evaluated to everything you do in that duration. If you get picked to fight more than once, as long as you can still stand, you have to say yes. We'll have the medic on stand by. You can do anything with murderous intent, you should see each other as your enemy, nightwalkers or lunatics." 

Bess' heart races. She thought the after-party would at least cheer Henryk up, there'll be a lot of pretty desserts, music and gorgeous settings. Well, Bess doesn't really enjoy that but Henryk might, she guessed. But that's definitely not something he'll enjoy with aches all over his body. Especially after Alastair encourages the other kids--in this case especially Jordan that had already shown his murderous intent to Henryk--to kill their opponent. That kinda makes the situation worse. But it's Alastair, the only person she would trust with her life in this house beside Brook. 

"Any question about the rule?" 

"What if we kill our opponent?" Damon--Dana's student--asked. Bess holds back not too laugh, because honestly, she's wondering where did the kid get his confidence after seeing Jordan and his murderous intent? Even Henryk that's better than him, realized their difference.