Another Loss for Humanity

Kaden went to the living room where the old man sat on the couch, watching television.

"You slept like a rock," The old man grinned when he saw Kaden walking in.

"Yeah… I was pretty tired," Kaden stretched his arms, his body was feeling a bit stiff.

"I can imagine," The old man grabbed the remote and turned the television off, "Are you hungry?"

"Very," Kaden nodded eagerly, his stomach was screaming in protest.

"I'm feeling a bit famished as well, let's go and see what there is to eat," The old man said, getting up to go to the kitchen.

There wasn't much, but the old man did have some bread and ham. They made some sandwiches and sat at the dining table, eating together.

It was nice and peaceful, not something Kaden had done before. Dinner time wasn't a comfortable affair at the foster home. It was nothing like this, Kaden and the old man just sat and talked about various things, enjoying each others company. It was… Nice.

"I figured I'd go to the boxing gym and work out for a bit. It'll also give me a chance to fetch my things," Kaden said, having just finished the last of his sandwich.

"Good idea. Oh right, I have something for you," The old man's face lit up and he dug into his pocket, fishing something out before handing it to Kaden.

"A key?" Kaden smiled as he held it.

"Naturally. It would be too hard to come and go without it eh?" The old man winked at him.

"Thanks I… I really appreciate what you've done for me," Kaden found himself getting a bit teary eyed.

"Don't mention it, you're a good kid, and it's nice to have some company around here," The old man just smiled and took another bite out of his sandwich.

Kaden felt slightly overwhelmed, nobody had ever treated him this well before. His teachers had always treated him like a nuisance, and Bill and Jill weren't even worth mentioning.

"Just… Thanks," Kaden wiped his eyes with his sleeves.

"Sure thing," The old man waved him off before switching the subject, "Hey if you're home later, we can watch that alien fight thingy together. If you want to that is?"

"Yeah I'd love to," Kaden enjoyed spending time with the old man, and he wanted to watch the fight regardless.

"Great! Well you best be on your way then, I'll see you later," After getting his agreement, the old man rushed him out of the house.

Standing on the street by himself, Kaden needed a moment to recover.

Was this what having a father was like? It felt good.

For the first time in his life he just sort of felt… Content.

*****

Kaden sat on the cold floor of the boxing gym, eyes closed and legs crossed. His facial expression was growing more and more impatient by the second.

Soon it all became too much for him to bare, he stood up and yelled out in frustration, "FUCK!"

The booming voice echoed in the empty boxing gym, breaking the silence.

It was just so goddamn irritating. No matter what he did, he couldn't concentrate when he tried meditating. For some reason, the moment he sat down he just lost all ability to sit still and concentrate. Every time he tried, thoughts started gushing forth and clashing inside of his head.

There was no peace and calm inside his mind, it was nothing like those Buddhist teachers on those internet videos said it was supposed to be.

He considered that maybe he was going about it the wrong way. After all, who said that cultivating Aether was anything like meditation?

There had been some forum messages that indicated so, but he didn't know for sure. The problem was that he didn't have much to go on, Aether cultivation was a well kept secret.

He sighed and shook his head, an hour had already passed and that just made his practice even harder. With all of his focus already completely drained, he wouldn't be making any more progress today.

Any more meditation was out of the question for today, he needed a break. He started thinking about what else he could do, but there wasn't much.

The sword form was still too hard to practice when he was imitating the phantom, it would be impossible to do it in real life purely relying on his memory.

Training the Demonic Sword Slash also seemed like a waste of time right now. His proficiency in that was pretty good, what he needed was to learn the basics. One couldn't fight with only a killing technique.

He sighed again as he realized he was completely devoid of ideas.

In the end he decided to just end his practice here and go home and relax for a while. He could spend some time with the old man.

*****

After Kaden had come home, him and the old man made dinner together and watched a news segment about the alien tournament.

The biggest news was that Li Jie had arranged a training camp so that all the selected fighters could train together. Every fighter had happily accepted the invitation, even Billy's father took Li Jie up on the offer.

The news panel had spent a long time discussing whether it would be any help, whether it could turn the tides for Earth's fighters.

Kaden and the old man had also been having their own discussion on whether the training camp would help the fighters from Earth.

They both hoped that it would, but neither of them were convinced that it would do much for the fight tonight.

Kaden had great faith in Li Jie, but one day wasn't enough to make any significant changes. Whether the training camp was successful or not wouldn't be known so soon.

Right now they were waiting eagerly for the alien to hijack the television so that they could watch the next fight.

The alien was always on time, and when there was only one minute left, Kaden leaned forward in his seat. He was both nervous and excited for the upcoming fight.

Suddenly and also preciously on time, the alien appeared on the television. It was the same old announcement, people had already gotten used to it. The alien just appeared shortly, saying that the second fight was about to begin.

Though he had gotten used to it, Kaden still thought that it was still freaky how their electronics were always taken over so easily.

As promised, the scene on the television changed. Once again, they were looking at that gray arena, watching two radically different opponents standing across from each other.

The fighter from Earth, Kong, was a big guy. He was the type that used his strength and size to fight, kind of like Vachir, except Kong was a lot smaller. He was human sized, and Vachir, well, he was not.

Nonetheless, Kong had brought a giant two handed hammer that he easily held up with one hand.

Kong's opponent was a mantis like creature from the Mantis race. Kaden thought it was humorous, but at least their name made a lot of sense. He knew he wouldn't be forgetting it.

But the comically accurate name didn't help Kong's chances much. As soon as the fight began, it was clear that the mantis creature was fast, a lot faster than the Rhynehorn Vachir.

Kong was on the back foot from the beginning as the mantis kept pressing him. He was only able to defend, and couldn't get any attacks in.

Even worse was that while the mantis' attacks weren't as powerful, they were a lot more deadly because of the blade like appendages the mantis had on it's arms. They could easily cut through Kong's defenses.

Which the mantis soon did. Shortly after the fight had begun, the mantis backed Kong up against a wall which forced Kong to defend with his giant hammer.

But the shaft of the hammer was like paper as the mantis' blade made a clean cut through it.

Kong threw the hammer away, it was nothing but a pile of rubbish now. The situation had turned even worse, now Kong had nothing to defend himself with. There was no way he could defend against something so sharp by using his hands.

He ran around for a while, but the mantis was far faster and always caught up to him. He had to narrowly dodge each swing of the mantis' blades, risking his life at every moment.

But he couldn't dodge forever, and the mantis used the same strategy it had done earlier, forcing him up against a wall. With little room to move and dodge, he soon paid the price as the mantis struck his arm, severing it just as easily as it had done with his hammer shaft.

The fight ended immediately with the mantis being declared the winner. Thankfully, the mantis wasn't senseless and walked off. Allowing Kong to live.

After losing another fight in the tournament, the mood inside of Earth's homes was at an all time low.

Knowing that they still had eight more of this to go, people were starting to feel hopeless. Nobody wanted to see their own race lose over and over, it was depressing.

But at least there was a bit of a bright side, nobody had died this time.

The entire human race just had to stake their hopes on Li Jie's training camp, and that it would pay off for the remaining fighters.

Neither the old man or Kaden were in the mood to watch the news segments that would take place after the fight. Those television stations were just trying to fill time, and the anchors didn't have much insight to add, even the expert fighters that they invited on wouldn't know much either.

After all, the only ones who had any experience were Edward, who was dead, and then Kong, who had just lost his arm. Probably neither of them would be coming on to provide insight, especially not Edward.

With nothing else to do, the old man and Kaden bade each other goodnight, each retiring to their rooms to go to bed.

They each silently hoped that tomorrow's fight was better, it had to be.

With how the aliens had acted so far, Kaden wasn't sure anything good would happen if they lost every fight.