You Must Be Humble To Be Proud
None of my brothers and sisters understand why I'm the undisputed best. The 'best of the best', they'd phrase it, the cocky bastards. They don't question it. They just accepted that they can't match me and that facing me was, is and will forever continue to be, hopeless. They're an unimaginative bunch, or as they like to phrase it, pragmatists. Fact: Benedict's fighting prowess are on a whole different level than theirs. Fact: they worked their asses off to hone their skills but beating big brother Benedict is still laughably impossible. Therefore: forget it!
If they ever discovered the secret behind my technique, how they'd rage and splutter. It's so simple. Even a child could come up with it, given our powers, but of course, none of them would be capable of thinking it. Their inflated egos make it quite impossible.
I once thought dad reached his pinnacle through similar methods, but of course dad cheated. He was a shape-shifter, I discovered shortly before he died as well as a high sorcerer. He didn't need to work at it.
Me, I did the unAmberite thing and went seeking in Shadow for things and places who surpassed me. None of the rest would ever do that. They can't picture a place where they're not King of the Hill. And when you can shape reality to your liking, if you pretend hard enough that something doesn't exist, it very conveniently doesn't. Everyone knows the Shadows are infinite and limitless yet still they'd never ever ever venture into a Shadow where we Amberites need crawl while the rest flit and run, a Shadow, where they fence while they're at it and munch on the chicken leg in their other hand. A Shadow filled with tactical geniuses who come with a slew of new techniques after a night's sleep. They call me Slowpoke around here. I'm still stuck at the bottom of the lists. I doubt I'll ever leave it. But how awed they all become every time I return home from my 'meditation trips'!
Gerard is the only one I ever revealed my secret to. He's a good lad, leagues better than the rest of them and, I pitied the boy. After he begged me nonstop for months and months on his knobby knees in those pitiful spindly legs he used to have, I gave in and told him. His Training Shadow is a heavy-gravity one full of grapplers, I believe. He never had to worry about Corwin and Caine giving him wedgies since.