The Flaming Sword Of Michael

“Thus, it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won. Whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.”

Art of War -Sun Tzu

It is both difficult and exhilarating leaving home for the first time. Michael had done so at the behest of a seemingly (to him anyway) wise, talking cat. That was four years ago, roughly. In that time Michael had trained with Lilith, who believed that learning to swim was best done in the deep end. They had been walking from town to town, city to city, and state to state. He had become a young man, a knight errant. She was his mentor, though she looked like his pet.

Michael was slightly taller now that he'd reached his full height. He was healthier, though he certainly didn't possess the svelte physique of your typical Hollywood hero. The walking had done him good, he still ate horribly whenever he could, though those opportunities were rarer. What about all the training? You may wonder why that hadn't paid greater physical dividends. Well I'll tell you. That's not really the type of training he received.

During the days and evenings when he wasn't walking or eating, he followed Lilith toward situations that would require his particular assistance. She seemed to have an otherworldly knack for finding trouble. That's because she did have an otherworldly knack for it, but we'll get to that later. After a day of walking, eating, and good-doing, they would go to whatever motel they were staying at (Lilith always picked up the check. How? Like I said, later) and do the real training.

Early on in their adventure Michael had been as excited about him getting in shape as you or I might have been. Alas, Lilith told him that if he wanted a beach body, get P90X and jump around in the motel on his own time. Their training was of a different nature. Michael had heart, but where evil lacks heart it makes up for it in will. At sixteen Michael had the strength-of-will of a half-eaten marshmallow. At twenty, it had improved to slightly better than the plastic case new headphones come in, in Lilith's estimation.

So each night, an hour before they turned in to bed, they trained. Sitting on the floor, facing one another, she assaulted him mentally and emotionally from every angle. Sometimes it was aided verbally. Often it was done psychically. Lately it had been both. She pulled apart every fear and insecurity he had ever had, and even came up with a few he had no idea he had. For sixty minutes she was relentless.

One night, mere hours after Michael had burst into a ranch style house to stop a husband from beating his wife (for forever) Lilith put him through a very fast and cunning mental attack. Michael held his ground well, and even managed to freeze her out for a short while. When she ended the session, Michael, beads of sweat sticking out on his forehead like the outside of a glass of sweet tea in a Georgia JOO-ly said, "Heh, I'm getting better. There was a whole minute or two there when I had you completely stonewalled."

"Yes, you've improved." Lilith said with no readable inflection.

"I'm starting to understand. Only my trust in myself, and knowledge of what's in my true heart can hold off all that negativity"

He paused for a moment, then asked a suspicious question that had been on his mind. “Where does someone like you, who’s fighting for good, come up with messed up stuff like that?”

"You're finally putting into use that which I've been teaching you for four years." Lilith said, radiating sarcasm.

Catching on that she still wasn't that impressed, Michael tried his own little joke. "So what do you say? Am I ready to take on your sisters, and their scary little Cambion?"

The look he got from Lilith slapped the smirk out from between his rosy cheeks.

"Human" She always called him that when she needed him to know just how inadequate he was. "Should any one of my sisters find out about you and your flaming weapon, they would send everything they have at us. Both our lives would end in agonizing pain. Your death would likely take a few years. Your feeble mind would be broken immediately, and you would experience what your kind calls hell for the rest of your short life. My death would take a millennium were I fortunate."

Michael gulped. "How long before I'm ready to face them? I've come so far, but you keep telling me how helpless I would be against them. When will we know? How long do we have? I know I've asked you these things before, but I'm not a child anymore. I want to know."

The small gray cat with the cute white toes sighed. "You've had a breakthrough today. That was good. I need to now intensify my efforts. We will know you are ready when you can withstand my full willpower. Then, will you be ready for the Cambion. If you survive my nieces and nephews, you might be ready to attempt surviving my sisters and their powerful entourage. How long we have before that has to happen..? ..I don't know, but we must train as though it could happen tomorrow."

Michael absorbed it all for a minute. He looked at her, determination showing on a face that it would have made look comical four years ago. He sat back down in front of her, and said, "Again."

Before she began, she briefly considered telling him the whole truth. That while she could influence the physical world around her, and impose her will over easily corruptible human hearts, she was the least powerful of her family. The Cambion numbered in the hundreds. What she had planned was a desperate gamble, and likely a suicide mission. She needed to get the wielder of the flaming sword close enough to her most powerful sister's heart. If they could survive the mental and spiritual onslaught, if they could endure to get that close, then Michael could stop Agrat Bat. The strain, however, would likely kill both Lilith and Michael.

Rather than telling him all of this, she opted to see where some training with this thin amount of delusional confidence might get them first, so she kept the ugly truth to herself and attacked. He fended her off ably, but she secretly hoped for more time. She could have done Michael's, yours, and my taxes while she sat there "pushing" him to his limits. Oh and also, she knew exactly how much time they had.

to be continued...