Practice

The trip to Benghazi was uneventful for the first few hours. 

However, upon reaching the ransacked city of Surt, Draco saw a small roadblock ahead of them. 

There were around a score of soldiers wearing black clothing, and Draco felt like they looked familiar to the soldiers that ambushed them during their initial bombing. 

They stood in front of a few vehicles as they stopped people who were traveling the roads to get towards Tripoli or Benghazi. 

As they stopped vehicles they made their passengers pay bribes, and if the travelers were unable to pay they had their vehicles seized. 

This roadblock was causing a huge traffic jam, and traffic stretched for nearly a mile in either direction.

'Didn't Prince Rayad say those were ISIS forces? I'm getting tired of these f*cking roadblocks.' Draco thought to himself in annoyance. 

Draco told Addo to keep the bus in line and then got out of the vehicle. He began to walk towards the roadblock, eager to vent his frustration. 

His hand rested upon the hilt of his lightsword, and he decided this would be a perfect opportunity to try out his new weapon. 

It didn't take him long to reach the roadblock, and once he was there one of the soldiers stopped him. They shouted at him in Arabic, but Draco didn't bother to try and figure out what they were saying. 

He pulled out the hilt from within his robes and flicked a switch on the side. 

This shot a blade of white plasma out of the hilt with a hiss, and it thrummed with power as Draco held it to his side.

He still remembered what Amira had told him back in the Hamin Tower. 

A weapon as powerful as this was liable to make him lose a limb, so he knew he had to be careful. 

However, just because something was dangerous was no reason not to do it. 

Draco swung the light sword down towards the annoying pest in front of him. 

The light sword sliced the man in the shoulder, and Draco continued downwards until the man was dissected into two neat halves. 

The man's corpse sizzled as it collapsed to the floor, and not a single drop of blood was spilt. 

'Incredible.' Draco thought, awestruck by the power of this weapon. 

It was like he was cutting through butter, and the light sword did all of the work as it seemingly traveled through the man's body on its own. 

Draco tried to twirl the weapon around in his hands, but was surprised by the weight of the blade. 

'You would think that a weapon called a light sword wouldn't be so heavy.' Draco thought in amusement, turning to see that the rest of the soldiers were now alerted to his position. 

The ISIS soldiers shouted at him and pointed their rifles at him in fear.

When Draco began to walk towards them, they started to fire at his position. 

Without thinking, Draco swung his weapon upwards. This blocked several of the bullets, instantly melting them into metal slag.

However, his technique was unrefined. Dozens of bullets inevitably made it through his guard as they shredded his clothes and impacted against his dense body hair. 

Draco was about to rush forwards and finish the soldiers out, but he realized this was a good chance to practice. 

He stood there as he was pelted with bullets, and he swung the lightsword wildly like a child with a stick. 

Draco was unable to block most of the bullets, but he was still able to stop some of them.

He tried to follow the trajectory of the bullets with his eyes, but they were moving too fast for him to track them. 

One of the bullets pierced into his cheek and came out the other side, and another struck his ear and took it clean off. 

Draco's head was an obvious weak point, for it was entirely unprotected by the thick hair that coated the rest of his body. He was forced to defend his head to avoid getting shot in the brain.

Draco quickly understood that he would have to proactively react to the weapons firing, for if he simply followed the bullets he would only be swinging at their afterimages. 

After realizing this, Draco was able to block many more bullets. 

The soldiers eventually ran out of ammo and stopped to reload, but Draco simply allowed them to do so. 

He stood in the same place and waited for them to reload, but this confused the soldiers. 

They saw that Draco was relatively unharmed, and the few wounds on his head were already healed by the time they finished reloading. 

Seeing that the soldiers had stopped firing, Draco motioned towards them. He was taunting the soldiers to continue firing at him. 

The soldiers didn't understand why this crazy person wasn't attacking them, but they knew that he wasn't invincible. 

They began to shoot towards his position once again, but this time Draco had already developed a new strategy to block the bullets. 

Draco was still forced to defend his head, and this allowed several bullets to strike his body before he could react to them. 

However, he was starting to get the hang of this. 

The soldiers eventually ran out of bullets again. At this point Draco's clothes were completely shredded, revealing his body to the desert sun.

Draco had grown tired of this 'practice' session, so before the soldiers could finish reloading he had already rushed towards their position. 

Arriving in front of them, Draco began to cut them down with wild flourishes. 

His movements were clumsy, but these unpowered soldiers were unable to put up any resistance in the face of Draco's sheer speed. 

He severed heads from their bodies as he bisected men into pieces. After only a few seconds Draco had already killed ten soldiers, and in only half a minute that number had grown to nearly twenty. 

When Draco was done all that remained around him were steaming piles of burnt flesh. 

He flicked the switch on his light sword and the blade of plasma retreated back into its hilt. 

Stowing the weapon away in his robes, Draco turned to see that dozens of people in their cars were staring at him in fear. 

Draco decided to do his one good deed of the day and began to push the soldier's vehicles out of the road. 

Once the road was cleared, Draco waved to the traffic and then walked back over to his armored bus. 

Climbing back into the vehicle, he saw that Snow was still angry at him. 

He resolved to talk to her later, for she wouldn't even look at him right now. 

Addo began to drive the bus down the highway now that the traffic was clearing up, and soon they were able to pick up speed. 

They proceeded down the highway for several hours without incident, but the sun had already long since set above the desert. 

The rest of the drive towards Benghazi was uneventful, and Addo switched out with another soldier so that he could take a break. 

After a few more hours, the armored bus had arrived in front of Benghazi's walls. 

They drove up to the city gates, and a trio of guards approached the bus. 

This time, Draco didn't have to provide a bribe. He showed the guards the seal that Prince Rayad had given him and he was promptly let into the city. 

They bowed their heads at the armored bus as it drove past, for anyone in possession of such a token was clearly a friend of the royal family. 

The bus drove through the city streets as it traveled towards the business district.

The streets were relatively empty during this time of night, so they quickly reached Bashar's shop. 

Seeing the neon sign that read, 'Bashar's Bazaar', Draco prepared himself to speak with Bashar once again. 

He got out of the bus and saw that the store was seemingly closed, and the two powered guards in the front pointed towards a sign on the door that said, ' مغلق CLOSED'. 

However, Draco insisted on being let through.

One of the guards eventually relented and went into the store to fetch someone, coming back with the female servant Draco had seen the last time he was there. 

The servant crossed her arms with a smug smile, clearly remembering Draco from the other day. 

Draco had showed up today with his clothes in an even worse state than before. Since he hadn't bothered to change his clothes before showing up, he looked like a homeless person. 

"No Bashar. Closed." the servant said in rough english, attempting to slam the door in Draco's face. 

However, Draco caught the door with his hand, preventing it from closing. 

He forced a smile, "I will be speaking to Bashar today." 

The servant's eye twitched, and she told the guards to throw Draco out of here.

The guards grabbed Draco's arms and tried to haul him away, but he wouldn't budge from his position. 

Annoyed, Draco turned to headbutt one of the guards. 

This sent the guard sprawling onto his rear, and when Draco looked at the other guard he let go of Draco's arm and backed away in fear. 

Waving his arms in surrender, the guard let Draco pass into the store.

Draco pushed past the female servant and walked into the store, but the annoying woman grabbed his clothes and pulled on them. 

Turning around, Draco slapped the woman across the face without using any of his real strength. 

This still sent the servant flying across the store. She flew into one of the walls, crashing into a number of treasures and knocking them onto the floor. 

A number of servants and guards rushed into the room upon hearing the commotion, and when they saw what was happening they assumed they were being robbed. 

The guards drew their weapons and pointed them at Draco, but when they saw the golden coin in his hands they all lowered them with a stunned expression on their faces. 

"Take me to Bashar!" Draco demanded, growing tired of this farce. 

As the first female servant saw Draco being led towards the elevator, she looked like she had just eaten a fly. 

'A r-royal seal?! W-who is this man?' she was thinking.