The warm waters cascaded down his back, steam rising and clouding the communal shower. His head was lowered, the room silent and all he could see was the blood pooling at his feet. Mixing with the water, diluting it, washing it away. He couldn't tear his eyes away from it, watching it spin around and spiral, twisting into a vortex flowing down the drain. The blood of another man, he thought, he was a person, a Viltrumite.
He cranked the faucet, increasing the temperature, the water turning to s light let blast, a portion of it evaporating before it even reaches his skin. Ended his life, closed the book on his life... yet he felt nothing and he didn't know why!
His hand snaps out, cranking the faucet even further, until it creaks. A loud hiss screams out into the bleach white bathroom, the water getting as hot as the atom agitators can make it before it comes out as pure gas. Yet he feels nothing, not even the sting of the water hitting his back.
He should feel bad, he should feel terrible for ending another Viltrumites life and yet he doesn't feel anything close to it. Instead, he feels that he should've started fighting them sooner. Gotten stronger, sooner.
He runs his hands through his hair with a deep sigh, then a little more aggressive then he intended shuts the water off. Silence reigning in the blindingly white bathroom. Too clean for Viltrum, he thought.
The flight back was uneventful for the both of them, and a normal society would even call it sweet or nice. However the closer they got to the training grounds the more their minds began to think about Thula. Hoping she was off in the city somewhere, talking with the reagent or erasing a civilization on some planet.
Coming up to the far wall they slow down. Looking at each other for the last time tonight, Nathaniel feels a little daring.
"I enjoyed bringing you with me, I hope you did too." He said hovering closer.
"Yes. Perhaps you will invite me again, watching you fight was quite... nice." She said coming closer as well, her eyes steady with his own. The air became charged with tension mere inches from each other they could feel their breath on their skin, daring smirks on both faces.
"Yes, I would... like you with me." He said, leaning in his hand coming up to rest on her chin bringing their lips together in a chaste kiss. It lasted for just a moment, a long, intense, mind numbing moment.
Anissa opens her eyes as he pulls back her stomach doing cartwheels, entirely unfamiliar with the feeling. She looked at him, his daring smirk sill drawn on his face and something in her chest stirred.
"Lets go, I'll see you in the morning." He said, both of them lifting off and floating gently over the wall before they catch sight of what lays on the other side.
Thula.
She stood in the middle of the field, arms crossed, eyes lasered onto them. They slow their descent, with nervous energy, Anissa touching down especially gently as if being incredibly slow will stop Thula from seeing them.
The moment Nathaniel is an inch from the ground, stable and floating comfortably, the ground rumbles. Thula disappears and a sonic boom thunders beside Anissa's head. Nathaniel's body crashed into the wall, bouncing off it as it cracks and deforms from the force and is caught mid-air by Thulas waiting hand, fingers clasped around his throat.
Anissa remains calm, although inwardly feeling a sense of dread at how easily she could end his life, furrowing her brows an imperceptible scowl creeping up her face.
"Honestly... how many times must I punish you. How many times do I have to break your body before your spirit submits..." Her fingers clenched harder, the sound of metal bending and warping filled the dark empty training yard. Nathaniels hands shot up clawing at her fingers, unable to find purchase as they made divots in his neck, he gasped for air then tried to hold it yet Thula would not let him escape the pain of suffocation, as she punched his stomach, his lungs forcibly exhaling. He began to get desperate, clawing at her arm and face, trying to wrench her off him. Yet Thulas eyes were locked onto his, calm, focused, predatory, piercing.
"Your existence irks me Nathaniel..... You're like a candle, and you blow and blow and blow and yet is still burns, as if taunting the fact, you ever tried putting it out in the first place.
"Thul-" Anissa is cut off as Thula, slams her fist into his gut once again, the ground rumbling a low groan. Her lips clamp shut, eyes scattering, looking for something she could do, yet she could to nothing.
"Except, much like a candle, I hold the power to snuff you out. With my bare, hands, if necessary." After saying her piece she hurls him back at the wall, his body ricocheting again, rolling on the ground, blood pooling from his mouth, his neck visibly indented from her grip.
"Anissa! Stop pitying him!" Anissa's gaze was dragged from Nathaniels crumpled form and in an instant Thula was upon her, grabbing her leg and slamming her body down hard into the ground, a crater exploding outward.
"Both of you! All 'Friendly' and 'Kind'.." She said the words with mockery, distain, imbrued in her words.
"It makes me sick... it makes you weak.... and you aren't weak." Thula brings two electronic bracelets out, tossing them to each of their collapsed and bleeding bodies and continues.
"The Grand Regent has given me the proper authority to engage in specialized training, along with a few worlds in the outer rim that need conquering. When you get up, check the DataBand and you will see your mission. You have until your day of Adulthood to complete them, if not I will kill you, and rid Viltrum of your weakness."