Ok...so this one is short too...sorry. But, hopefully the chapter will get longer later. Teehee...
Chapter 3: The First Lesson
That night, I slept on his couch again. By then he had figured out I couldn't fluently speak English. But it was ok. Because he was going to teach me. It would take me nineteen months to learn the language perfectly. He wasted no time. He never has. The next day, he showed me around his house. No. Not house. Maze. Mansion. His place was huge. It was like a four story warehouse. We started in the second story. It was underground. It was cold. It was incredible. He had an entire training room set up. Complete with a pool. There was an observation room with glass walls. There was a desk pushed up against the wall. He had weights, and bars, and ropes, and robots, and inverted stairs, and salmon ladders, and all-in-one gyms, as well as a basketball court and a running track that went all the way around. The place was humongous. On the other side of the room, at the back, was an elevated platform. On the walls were weapons. Bows, arrows, swords, guns, boomerangs, darts, throwing disks, and a bunch of other things I didn't have names for. I walked over to the wall and picked up what looked familiar to me. It was a long metal stick. It looked like the balance rod I practiced with at the circus.
"It's called a bow staff." he said.
I nodded. I smiled. He picked up another one. He faced me.
"You use it kind of like a sword." he said. I understood the word sword. I'd seen those before. Slade dropped down into a fighting pose.
"Attack me." he said.
I didn't understand. He swung his bow staff in my direction lightly. I wasn't afraid he'd hit me... But I raised my staff and blocked his attack.
"Very good, Dick." he praised. I smiled. He swung again. I blocked again. He smiled. Next time, I ran at him. I jumped up and swung at him. He blocked it easily. We continued for a while, he swung at me, but he never hit me. His blows were light, so even if he had hit me, I would have barely felt it.
"Good job. Let's move on, shall we? We'll come back later." he said.
I nodded. I understood 'later.' he took the staff and he showed me the third floor. This was a smaller floor. In it were a bunch of different rooms. A library, some closets, a file room, there was a big garage that had a small plane, a helicopter, and a motorcycle. There was a safe, a medical room, a bathroom...there wasn't very much. It was mostly just a big library. Slade had thousands of books. Magazines, newspapers, reports, articles...tons and tons of information. Next was the fourth floor. This was the only floor that wasn't underground. This floor was set up like a typical, everyday house. There was a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a bathroom, a laundry room, an office, a garage, a foyer, and three bedrooms. Looking out the window, I saw that he actually lived in a neighborhood. Slade had a nice house. And he had a cool basement. In my five year old mind, nothing could be better. I stayed with him. He taught me how to speak English, he taught me how to fight, he helped me with my acrobatics. He was more than just a person who took me in, he was my Master. That's what I called him when we were training. He called me Stygian. It goes with his name. I didn't know it then... But his name was Deathstoke the Terminator. Pretty simple what his name means. Mine comes from the River Styx. Off the Stygian shores. The river where Charon ferried the souls of the dead. When we aren't training, I call him Slade, and he calls me Dick. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it always will be.
I've had a good life.
R&R!
Also, I'd love to hear from you guys as far as suggestions for this story...Please, tell me what you want to see happen. I'll do my best to make it happen. :) Have a good day!