Chapter Summary: When Blade finds that he must learn the ways of a Hellraiser in order to succumb to the dark nature of the true Demon, training day for Blade becomes much more intense.

Chapter 5: Lesson be Learned

Blade spent the rest of the day, much of the morning, inside of a gauntlet room, meditating the night out, doing so for hours upon hours to come yet. He knew he wasn't ready. Not yet.

Somewhere deep within the Temple of Doom, the new home of the vampires...

"It is apparent," Alexei, Russian vampire, inferred. "that Blade is once again out of his league. Our ex-familiars got the best of him."

"My power," Phenom induced. "outweighs failure."

"No power," Alexei presented. "can match yours, Master."

"Blade is not yet worthy," Phenom criticized. "to give into the night."

"Our kind will become shadows of the night sky," Alexei examined. "where vampires reign supreme."

"No Mortal will be spared," Phenom theorized.

"No," Alexei accepted with a smile on his face. "...not one."

(meanwhile...)

Blade was awoken from his meditation as the ex-familiars slid open the door leading into the barely occupied gauntlet room. It became apparent that Blade was not yet finished with that his new partners-in-justice have started.

"Wake up, Blade," Reidyn aroused. "Your training is not yet complete..."

Your training is not yet complete. Those are the words that stood out the most to him, like an attachment to his mind, knowing he'd have gone through so much yet there was still much to accomplish yet. Blade headed out of the gauntlet room, following Ash and Reidyn outside... he knew the job was far from finished, though the travel to the next stage of his training was far longer than it initially seemed.

"Isn't it sad," Reidyn input, walking further down the hall with him and Reidyn. "that you fall not at the hands of a greater force, but by that of a force you do not inherit?"

"I've never seen anything like it before," Blade answered. "I take it you guys must be the third world bunch."

"Just remember that there is no pain in suffering," Reidyn insisted. "but there is pain and suffering in not trying at all."

"And I'm supposed to take you Junior Scouts seriously?" Blade imposed furiously. "going through your little cliches to win a date with the Devil on a one way ticket to Hell? Have you fuckers lost your damn minds!"

"No," Reidyn answered him. "One must not rely on acts of symbolism to achieve one's means. Your mind can only accomplish so much before it crumbles and falls apart. You must learn to use it as a guiding tool that will bring you inner strength to the next level. You must learn to be the same inside as out... you must become pure."

"There's no purity in being a Daywalker," Blade reasoned. "It's something I can't help but keep inside of me... something I can't get rid of."

"There's more to becoming a Daywalker than a typical lust for blood and flesh," Reidyn explained. "what if you could use your thirst as a weapon and not a gift? What if the loss of your family could translate into immense power? Into energy? What would you give for a gift such as that?"

"It's a price I'm willing to pay," Blade agreed.

"Then come with me," Reidyn requested. "and obtain a power far greater than any Hunter has ever deemed possessed."

"Beware, Blade," Ash precautioned. "What you are about to attempt, few people have ever seen before."

Blade took his kind words of advice, and followed him into another private quarters, a mid-sized sleeper cell room filled with various water commas, each containing an inept, infunctional vampire inside of each. Blade gave each one a hawk's eye, staring deep into the first one his eyes crossed paths with.

"Blade," Reidyn called out, walking around to glass cells with his arms folded behind his back. "the time has come for you to find out if you so possess the Hellsuit's true power, to find if this suit has blessed you with the power and spirit of Krypticalonean. This will be your first test."

Reidyn paused to walk further down the slope of the cortex, showing Blade around it.

"As you can see," Reidyn endured. "these vampires are being mind-controlled by a telekinetic force stored inside the visor in the back of your head. Like all else, you control what happens to them. When I say "go," you will release them from their cells, and whatever you do, do not try anything stupid."

Blade stood patiently, waiting for the joyful moment in which he could prey in on his next suckhead victims. He was making a living—and collection—out of doing so. Reidyn held a moment or two off before giving Blade the "heads up" on the inevitable situation at hand.

"Now, on my lead," Reidyn commanded. "you will free these lost souls, only to take care of each one of them not personally, but mentally. Do not rely on your biceps nor your sword to finish the job for you... it's what's inside that counts."

"I've said this before," Blade commented. "and I'll say it again..."

Blade paused, shaking his head sideways and swerving it a couple of times.

"Let's get ready to roll with this," Blade intrigued.

"On 'three,'" Reidyn commanded. "One... two... three!"

At that moment—rather, that very instant—Blade ripped and let loose on the targets. He let his mind do all the talking.

He began to focus in with his mind, and just as he did so, managed to break open every last one of the glass prisons, using his mind as a weapon against it. Numerous gallons of water and many tiny shards of glass were shattering and splurting all over the floor. Out of these implosions came a single vampire for each one. They dared not take turns directing attacks at Blade, as each one lept at Blade in a simultaneous fashion, ready to make short work of his dark flesh. They felt their lust and thirst for fresh blood reeling in. Blade merely closed his eyes as they had done so, daring not open them.

"Give into it, Blade," he heard Reidyn ponder softly, with his enhanced visor. "Use your angst against them."

Blade's head shivered with agony as , by the time Blade once again opened his eyes, he saw clouds of dust, ash, and cinder blowing apart, deriving themselves from their slain bodies, in strong gusts. They eventually collected into a single stash along the floor, which reminded Blade of an ash trey filled with vampire corpse cinders. He knew the job had been completed... up to this point. Not one of the dozen or so was left...

"Good," Reidyn complemented him. "very good... revenge is an acceptable motive for strength, but only in the right hands and mind, and you have just shown it. Now, just picture your revenge against me for what I did to you earlier... but beware: killing me will, in return, kill off any hope or prayer of you ever taming the True Demon which lurks somewhere deep within."

At first, Blade contemplated it with his mind... and then he carried out with with a fury of shown mental power and strength. He violently threw Reidyn over to him with an invisible-yet strong force, and Blade followed in the direction he was heading as he threw Reidyn head-first into the nearest wall, which Reidyn landed safely with a wall plant and a front flip off of it, which Blade blocked with a pair of crossed arms, the blocked hit forcing Blade back a couple of grandfather steps. Reidyn tried to land a hard left, followed by a hard right, both of which Blade blocked and threw off with ease. Reidyn, who had not faced any counterattacks, threw in a pair of blind knuckles, one with the left hand, and then the other, both of which were again blocked and pushed out of position by a powerful kick to the spine. Reidyn stepped further up to congratulate him on the effort.

"Finally," Reidyn remarked. "the Daywalker is showing some emotion for himself. What an effort."

Reidyn backed away and attempted another one of his signature moves, one that's been attempted three times in one day—the dragon strike—which Blade countered with a spin kick as Blade's foot connected with Reidyn's chest as he was soaring through midair. Reidyn was stunned by the hit and leveled into the nearby wall which left a small dent in it and left Reidyn motionless. Man, that hit was a bitch!

Blade tried to grab Reidyn and pick him up to where he would be back on foot, but Reidyn broke the hold with a pair of balled fists and tried to jab at his now defenseless chest, just as Blade intercepted the hit and grabbed a hold of his fist. He spun to the side of him holding it, and delivered a heel kick to the gut of Reidyn, sending him aback towards the ground, close to the spot in the wall where Blade leveled him into just seconds ago this instant. Reidyn, of course, rebounded, for he always had a counter attack handy while in this rather prone position.

Reidyn, needless to say, lifted his head back up and tried to deliver a leg sweep to Blade as he came to him, which would've tripped him upon impact. Blade reacted timely quick to it, leaping over the hit. Blade appeared behind him as he delivered with an overhanded smash, which sent Reidyn on both knees upon impact, whereas Blade quickly appeared in front of him and held his chin against one knee, with the tip of his sword pointed towards the side of his head in this position. Reidyn had clearly lost this one. It was clear... lightning had not struck twice. Not today.

"Uh, uh-okay!" Reidyn stuttered to concede. "you beat me. You can release me now."

Blade quickly threw him back up from his defenseless position. Blade greeted him with a rather informative look on his face.

"Can't beat me without teleportin'," Blade inferred. "now can ya?"

"I just wanted to teach you," Reidyn presumed. "a new lesson to be learned. Do you wish to oblige?"

"It all goes accordin' to plan," Blade enticed. "now doesn't it?"

"Of course, Blade," Reidyn revealed. "You have mastered the art of telekinesis. Like it, teleportation interacts with the mind, but on a much more sophisticated level. In order to defeat Phenom, you must learn to master both, but I'm afraid doing so within a short amount of time will disrupt the mind's short term memory. Like the human body, it needs time to reimburse it's own functionality in order to remain stable. It is not to be overused."

"And just what exactly does that mean?" Blade prospered.

"It means we must call it a day," Reidyn imposed. "or night, whatever you want to call it. These methods I have taught you wear out the mind. Continue like this, and next thing you know, you won't even remember my name, let alone what I have taught you. Get some rest. You will find that it is your mind that needs it and not your body."

With those words in Blade's state of mind—like they haven't been there before—Blade decided to "hit the hay" once again. It had been a long night...

(Elsewhere...)

An environment bagged entirely in thickets of darkness around every corner of every footstep awaited them down below, and it appeared to have been containing strange activity of some sort. One could only describe it as a reunion tour sealed purely in darkness...

"I'm sick of their world," Viktor, a humanoid vampire in a black leather shirt and jeans sneered. "Always trying to learn from the best."

"Demons, vampires, and death angels alike," Dark Disciple, the aforementioned one which invaded Blade's reams sought after. "...they're all the same to me."

"Yeah," Henrik, another humanoid bloodsucker wearing overalls and with a bottle of liquor in hand. "truly pathetic. That's what they are."

"You know, that's fuckin' ironic," Viktor cursed intentionally. "because they have a place on Earth and we don't."

"You should be thankful for that," Henrik encouraged. "without them, there would be no one else to kill."

"Maybe besides the one responsible for my initial death," the Death Disciple reassured them.

"Yes," Henrik somewhat agreed. "but the thing that compensates us from them is that the Mortals can't see us... you can't kill what you can't see."

"But what you can't see," the Death Disciple replied. "...can kill you."

TBC