All of the gathered mutants stayed away from them. Most even tried to scurry to the far corner of the wagon just to get away. Others were frozen in place, as though they were prey that just ran into a wolf or a lion.
“Listen up,” Gram yelled. “Your captures are dead. I’ll be leaving now. Head over that way and you’ll find a small town. I don’t know if they’ll be kind to mutants, so it’ll be up to you whether to go or not. Honestly I don’t care where you go, just don’t follow us.”
“Here,” Gram threw a dagger towards them. It landed point first into the floor. It stuck there, standing, waiting for it to be pulled out like some mythical object. The others backed away, though. Many of them thought it was some kind of trick.
But true to his word, he began to walk away. “Daniel, come.” His uncle calling to him made him feel as though he were some kind of dog. But he went anyways.
One of them, a child with long scruffy hair and green skin tried to follow after them. But as he did, he found that he was still tied to the floor. “Thank you," he called out. He then went over to the knife and dug it out of the floor. He then proceeded to try and cut his rope as fast as he could.
“Sifu,” Daniel said. “Where are we going?”
“Wherever others aren’t.” Gram waited a few seconds to check behind them. It didn’t seem that anyone was following them. He let out a sigh of relief. “Your father’s family skill can’t be taught to outsiders,” he explained.
“Aren’t you technically an outsider?” Daniel asked.
“Smart ass kid,” His uncle grunted.
“Sifu?”
“What is it now?”
“Do you have any children of your own?” Daniel wondered this. If his uncle had a child, would he teach them his father’s technique? They would still be outsiders, but it was his father’s technique. And as his father’s only descendent, he felt he should decide. And in any case, he wouldn’t have worried about it.
“I have five I know for sure that are mine. It’s best you know this now. If you run into any of them, don’t mention me. Three don’t know about me. One knows I’m their father. And the last one- she hates me. If you ever mention me to her, she will probably kill you.”
Daniel nodded. “I understand.” But he didn’t really. What had his uncle done that made someone so mad that they would try to kill him? But that wasn’t for him to discuss with his uncle. He didn’t have anyone who wanted to kill him. So he wouldn’t know what that would be like. He guessed he would feel sad. So he didn’t bring it up with his uncle.
The conversation didn’t progress from there for some time.
Daniel’s mind thought about all those mutants that were kept inside the wagon. There were so many of them. Where would people go to get that many people? And more importantly, why? He wondered if those people were actually slaves. The idea made him sick to his stomach.
“Sifu,” Daniel said. “Isn’t slavery supposed to be illegal?” Daniel remembered his father read him books that mentioned that.
“Illegal?” Gram laughed. “Where exactly do you think you are? The wastelands is the most lawless place in the known world. While we may be in the Pure Land Territory-
“We’re in the Pure Land Territory?” This was news to Daniel. He remembered his father told him that they were in Scarlet Grove Territory, when did they cross over?
“Guess your father didn’t tell you. The wastelands are an infamous place. It is the very center of the known world. But that also means that it is very far away from the headquarters of many major organizations. Trust me, there are three people who live here: those who are criminals, those who are looking to hide, or those who can’t afford to leave.”
“Then which one are you?”
“Naturally I’m just passing through,” he explained.
“Sifu, what about my father, why would he have us here?”
“Oh, that’s simple. You remember how those thugs were looking for your father?”
Daniel nodded.
“It is simply that your father’s skill is too valuable a tool. Could you imagine how many people would want to use it in order get what they want? Your father was once a very famous person. Even I wouldn’t have been able to kill him in his prime.”
“So then why did father die so easily?”
“My guess- old age, exhaustion, and getting caught off guard.”
“What?” Daniel remembered his mother telling him that his father had exhausted himself to get to them, but what about the other things.
“Daniel, your father may have been strong, but when he was able to hold off a hundred people, that was over ten years ago. He was younger, stronger back then. As time goes on, you will get stronger. But after a certain point, your strength will wane and eventually die. You, me, everyone will face this reality at some point.”
“I understand, sifu.”
“It’s good that you do.” Gram took another look. He didn’t see anyone near them. “This should do. Daniel, you’ll be continuing your training here.”
“Here?” Daniel. His legs were killing him. He already got into a life or death situation. What more did his uncle want from him. But what could he do.
Again, Daniel began to do his Black Tortoise technique. His uncle watched him with a stern gaze. It was as though his mother had continued watching him train.
“Don’t disappoint,” Daniel repeated inside his mind.
“You may not understand this now, but you need to push past the pain,” Gram said inside. He watched Daniel make each movement. He watched him do the same stance over and over until he got things right. “The world will not be kind to you if you want to quit. You need to keep fighting. In this world, those who quit end up dying.”
“Did you say something, sifu?” Daniel asked.
Gram coughed. He didn’t realize he was muttering while his nephew was still training. “No,” he huffed. “Just keep training.”
The two of them had kept at it until it was late in the night. The darkness was a time for comfort for Daniel. His uncle had kept working him. There were no breaks unless his uncle beat him and with the wasteland sun – Daniel was basically burnt red. Even breathing was hard for him.
When the moon was already far up in the sky, Daniel had been laying in the sand for the past half hour. Every part of him was pulsating. He wondered how his mother and uncle were able to survive with this kind of training.
It felt like any kind of movement would be another lashing. What hurt the most were the bits of sand that were rubbed into his wounds.
“Are you still alive or are you going to lie there all day?”
“Sifu-“ Daniel tried to say something, but his mouth was too dry. Even what he said was barely more than a whisper.
Gram sighed. He grabbed the cork of his bottle with his teeth and opened it with a pop. He bent down and poured the water into Daniel’s mouth. “I told my sister that I would take care of you, Perhaps this is what she meant, but maybe not.” He let out a laugh, but it was a hollow laugh. One that pain and bitterness and sadness hidden underneath it all.
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He then picked up Daniel and slung him over his shoulders. He then walked back to the town.
“Sifu, we’re in the Pure Land Territory, why is the Flame Drum Cult in this area? Are they trying to push into the Pure Land Territory?”
“You know how of the three major organizations, Scarlet Grove is the largest?”
Daniel nodded.
“That is merely in terms of territory. Scarlet Grove has covered half of the known world. But their restrictions for who can join are too high for many people. Thus, their numbers are kept relatively low. As for Flame Drum Cult, just about anyone can join. They only have a single leader and he doesn’t bother recruiting members. He lets lesser servants do that for him. And because many people can be bribed, there are many people who join the cult, learn a few techniques then leave. Because of this, their power is mainly in numbers, but in terms of how many are loyal to them, that is hard to say. The fact that we have mainly found those who would steal the Flame Drum Cult’s techniques says more about the people you’d find in the wastelands than it does about the cult itself.”
“Oh,” was all Daniel could manage to say.
The walk was rough. His uncle’s shoulder was digging into his stomach, Daniel found it even more painful to breath. After a long time walking, Daniel could actually see where the town was. He could see the lights up ahead. He was glad that he saw it. Now there was a place where he could sleep, a place he could lay his head.
Then he stopped. His uncle dropped him onto the ground.
“Sifu,” Daniel groaned.
“Get comfortable there,” Gram said. “You’ll be sleeping here tonight.”
“What?”
“Daniel, I’ve made many enemies in my life. The only reason people like me are alive is because we continue to wander around, never finding a place to settle for long. If those mutants stayed behind, then naturally word will get around.”
“So then, are we going to travel to the next town?”
“If there are some there, yes. But we still need supplies to get us there. So for now, you’ll just have to wait here.”
“So you’re just going to leave me here?” Daniel was already shaking from the cold. But there was a chill that ran up his spine. He remembered what his uncle told him. There were mutated animals out in the world. What if one of them came by and thought that he looked like a tasty snack?
“Think stupid child. You are too exhausted to run, and if anything happens, it’d be much better that you die here than me having to worry about you all the time.”
Daniel wanted to hit his uncle for being a bad uncle, but his body was sore all over. Even lifting a finger was similar to trying to lift a mountain. Thus, he said nothing.
Gram soon left after that.
With his uncle gone, all Daniel could do was look at the night sky. There was something about it, the vastness of it all. In his exhausted state, all Daniel could think about was vast everything seemed. The wasteland, the night sky. In all of it, what was he? He was nothing more than a speck of dust compared to it all. If he were to be blown away by this world, who or what would care. His eyes couldn’t stop looking up at the sky. He was mesmerized by it.
And after some time, he woke up. He found his uncle carrying him as well as the motorcycle and the supplies on his back.
It seemed like a dream. For Daniel, that was now years ago. It had been five years since he started traveling with his uncle. In all those years, Daniel had trained hard, honing both skill and technique. Now, he had a scar for each village they passed through.
But it wasn’t just martial arts that his uncle taught him- as it turned out, the Western Fiend was well versed in machinery, navigation, and cooking. And he started teach Daniel these arts after their first year traveling together.
“Who can say whether I will be able to keep cooking our meals,” he once told Daniel after they had slayed a three foot iguana. After that, he began to teach Daniel the arts of preparation and seasoning. He also showed Daniel when to tell if food is going bad and how to preserve food so that it stays fresh for longer.
Over the course of many years, the two of them went from town to town, from village to village in the wastelands. The motorcycle parts were sold off for the first two years to pay for their supplies. After that, they would head into town, grab a few supplies, maybe work some jobs before moving to the next town. Rinse and repeat.
Daniel was no longer the scared little kid he was before either. In all the years that he had traveled with his uncle, they had faced their fair share of bandits, crooks, and corrupt law enforcement. In this world, one needed to be willing to kill. If one did not, they would die.
Blue Creek was one of many towns that Daniel and Gram had visited. It was another small town. The only difference was that it lay by a small river, making gardening slightly feasible. The plants in the area weren’t as plentiful as the orchard that Daniel grew up on, but there were enough to sustain this small town.
There were less than fifty people in the town, many of whom had taken up farming. Some even had their vegetables growing on their windows. Once they made it to the gates, Daniel was doe eyed with wonder.
Just before they entered the town, Gram stopped. “Daniel, go in and find rooms for us. I’ll meet you there.”
“Yes, sifu.” Daniel said. For the past three years or so, Gram would often disappear right before entering a town, having Daniel find rooms for them. He had no clue what his uncle did, and if he ever tried to find his uncle or ask about it, he would get a beating. The last time he tried to find his uncle, he was beaten close to death and found himself lying in a hotel room three days later. Ever since that time, Daniel didn’t even think about finding out what his uncle had been doing.
Gram left Daniel to find his way around.
Over on the other side of town was a hill that towered over the stone buildings. On that hill the stream flowed down like a sad excuse for a waterfall. While the water was in short supply, it was more flowing water than Daniel had seen in years.
The hill, the flowing water, the gardens all around. There was feeling of home Daniel found in this place just by looking at it.
When Daniel walked in alone, he tended to ask for directions from the first person he saw. And a man with a slouched form and hoe carried over his shoulder was walking right past him. On his head he wore a dull green beanie. He had a large nose and even larger mustache that curled down to past his first lip. He wore a beanie on his head and had a rather distant look on his face as though he wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going.
Uri waved to him. “Excuse me, is there an inn I could stay?”
“Fuck off,” the man said.
Daniel shrugged. That happened about half the time he asked someone if there was an inn. Daniel watched the man go.
Over the years, Daniel had been trained by his uncle to just how strong a person was. To do this, Daniel needed to see how they walked, how they breathed, how they carried things, how they reacted to changes in the environment, the ticks on their face and many other factors. After that, he would see how many attacks he could land out of a possible thousand.
For most regular people, Daniel could pick from over eight hundred different scenarios. This was because people knew how to block and because some people focused on one part more than the other. And yet, when Daniel saw the man walk past him, Daniel could see only three moves.
Three! Even for adepts around his age, he felt he could land at least fifty, and for regular experts, he could land at least ten. Three was an absolutely absurd amount. Daniel’s eyes narrowed on the man. Although he looked thin, there was a kind of muscle about him, the kind that worked with flexibility instead of raw power. Daniel wondered if the man had some kind of training.
Daniel only watched the man walk a few feet, but didn’t bother him anymore. He found someone else for directions, a woman who looked to be nearing the end of her life, she pointed Daniel in the direction of an inn. Daniel thanked her and headed in the direction she told.
Corn Husker Inn was written on the sign. Sign would have been the nicest way of putting it. It was a banner that had been stitched together from many different parts. However, because of the color scheme, it seemed to have been made from the same company. Made it was for a sports team- people in the olden days seemed to like their sports teams for some reason.
The inn was much nicer than the Rattle Snake Saloon. The tables had table cloths on them. The chairs were even painted white, and it seemed fresh too, not like the ones that had been left over from the olden days.
“Welcome, welcome,” an older gentleman said. He looked like a kindly fellow with a black vest and a green button up shirt. Glasses hung over his nose and a smile graced his lips. “Welcome to the Corn Husker Inn. What would you like today?” The man had a paper name tag on with the name Leo pinned to his vest with a safety pin.
“One room, please. Preferably with two beds.”
“Not a problem,” the man said. He looked around. “Is your father or mother around?”
“My parents are dead,” Daniel said. When he was young, he forced himself to say this. It was the reality he had, saying it seemed to make it easier for him. Now it was just a habit.
“I see,” the man said.
“But my sifu will be coming later.”
“Sifu,” Leo said. “Now that is a word that I haven’t heard in a long time.”
“Really, doesn’t this town have any experts?”
Sifu wasn’t something that was exclusively used by his uncle. Many other experts that Daniel came across typically called their master sifu as well.
“Not anymore. We’re just a small town. If someone wishes to take some things from here, we just give it to them. We may not have a lot, but we can grow whatever we lose, so it won’t matter in the long run.”
Daniel nodded.
“So, one room with two beds,” the man said to himself as he opened up the ledger. He thumbed through the pages. “Oh, I do have one on the third floor. Aside from a bed and a dresser, is there anything else you need.”
“Is there a bathroom?” Daniel asked.
The man nodded. He looked a little confused as to why Daniel would ever assume otherwise.
Once Daniel experienced indoor plumbing, there was no going back for him.
“Can I ask you about a man in town, a farmer I think. He has a large mustache and nose with a beanie on his head.”
“Oh Christopher,” Leo said. “A tragic thing that man.”
“Tragic?” Uri asked.
“He just came to town one day, covered in bruises screaming for Joan or something. The town was able to nurse him back to health, but he doesn’t speak to people. Actually he’s rather rude. But he’s more bark than bite.”
“Right,” Daniel said.
From outside, there was a loud crashing sound followed by an explosion. Daniel knew that sound by now. He ran outside. If things weren’t safe, then they would have to skip town. That was the number one rule that his uncle had taught him.
When he went outside, he wasn't sure what he was looking at.
He took a look outside to see what was going on.