The Animal In Me

"You are not your father, Lili," Lex replied using her shortened name. Perhaps her brother's words did not hurt her, but they did have an effect on Alexandre. If she didn't want a family, it was her choice, but no one deserved to have 5hat choice made for them. "It's okay to want something, even if you feel like you will never have it. At least you have a choice in the matter."

He noted the far off look in Liliya's eyes, which told him that she really did want a family, but found it easier to try to convince herself than to hope for something better. "You are a bright and beautiful. If you wanted a family, you could have one. You have that option."

Lili watched Lex, frowning. He seemed to that's what she wanted. But even if she did no man in his right mind would take her. She was too tough, she had an attitude, and she was not made to stay home. No, she would be better off without it all.

"You're wrong. I appreciate the kind words, but you are wrong. I may be beautiful, but underneath what you see if cracked and broken. I am far too independent for a family."

A look of defeat spread across Alexandre's face, his grey eyes seeming to darken a bit as he realized that nothing he could say would change Liliya's opinion. If she truly did not desire that lifestyle then it was her choice. But that was all he wanted her to see, that it was indeed her choice. "Very well then," was his reply, having left her words in the air for several seconds to let her know that he had considered them extensively.

Maybe he was the idealistic one. Lex was, after all, just an experiment gone awry. What did he know of such things that could not be found in a children's fairy tale. He contemplated this as he moved to the clothesline to check the dryness. It would still be a little while before their clothes were dries out enough to wear.

Returning to the fire, the monster man sat in his original spot, no longer having anything meaningful or important to say or do. The only real goals were to dry their clothing, then kill the doctor. Hat was there to discuss?

It was silent for a while, both of them seemingly unsure of what to say or do. The relaxing mood had been ruined by Nikolai and it didn't seem to be coming back. Liliya stared at the fire, watching the flames dance, it's warmth reaching her but unable to warm her. The silence, to her, was unsettling, so she broke it.

"Was it true? What you said before we left, I mean." She looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Would you help me... End Oleksy, if I so choose?" Since Lex had mentioned the possibility of killing her father, she'd been unable to get the idea from her head.

The broken silence almost started the beast. Lex looked up at his companion, his expression somewhat distant and confused, but resigned and determined at the very same time. "I may be many things, but if nothing else, I am a man... a monster... of my word. If you wish to see him ended, I will help you." Lex's voice remained solid, despite the lump that was forming in his throat.

Facing Oleksy would mean almost certain death. Perhaps she would be spared, being his daughter, but Alexandre knew that he would be destroyed. Without the doctor to pay off the bounty, killing him would be the only other logical solution. Knowing that, Lex still nodded his head, ready to die again if it meant giving Lili her freedom.

"Not monster, Alexandre. I have seen no part of you that resembles that word. You are a man." Liliya looked back at the fire, leaning forward resting her elbows on her knees. "And you don't need to look so... Panicked. Oleksy is skilled, yes, but I am his daughter, and it's about time the student surpassed the master. He will not end you. Not if I have anything to do about it."

With those words, she stood and pulled bandages from her bag. Wrapping her knuckles she turned to face him. "Stand up. There's a thing or two you're going to need to learn if we're to take down the Wolf."

"This isn't panic. Trust me, you'll recognize panic when you see it. I am not a man. I am men. Bits and pieces put together to bend to the will of another." Perplexed, Alexandre stood, watching her wrap her fists in cloth. He could only assume that she meant to do some boxing and was avoiding the possibility of scraping her knuckles. Not that she would feel them if she did. "So tell me then. How do I beat the Wolf?"

"Bits of men make the man that is standing before me. Before you died you were one piece, now undead you are many. You are like the rest of us. Everyone kills to survive, that does not make you a monster." Finishing with wrapping her knuckles, she got into a fighting stance.

"There is no beating him. You need to outwit him, he plays dirty." Liliya lunged at Lex feigning a punch knowing he was looking at her hands because of the cloth wraps. But at the last second she switched and brought her leg up to kick him. Oleksy was famous for fake-outs.

Lex was fooled by the rouse, and backed up a few steps. "How do you outwit someone who has been doing this since before I died?" Lex had only ever relied on his strength and speed to defeat his opponents in the past, but it seemed that even his unnatural traits would not be enough. He kept his fists raised in a boxer's pose as he prepared for Liliya's next attack.

"You don't." Liliya advanced again. "But," she actually went to punch him this time. "You learn his tricks, anticipate his moves, maybe once you can catch him off guard." She kept pushing forward, faking him out and then actually going to hit him straightforward, alternating so there was no distinct pattern. She wanted Lex to be prepared for both, and to catch on so he could fight back.

Every time Lex took a hit, it frustrated him visibly. The urge to bull rush and trample was hard to suppress. Liliya may not have believed him to be a monster, but she was wrong. Being pulled back from the Abyss and transposed into a mismatched body did not come without its share of risks, one of which being an uncontrollable rage. After the second shot, that one to the face, the frustrated Alexandre threw his hands up and roared, turning and gouging a chunk out of a tree trunk with his fist.

"This is pointless! I cannot see past the diversion. We'd be better off letting him fight me, then let you catch him and end him. I am little more than an enraged bull, unable to see past the end of his nose."

Liliya picked a piece of the tree and threw it at Lexs head. Then another. And another. "You want to quit? Then you will die. Without learning how to open your damn eyes and see, you won't last five seconds in a fight with Oleksy. You might as well kill the doctor and leave my father to me."

Stalking toward him, not one bit deterred by his outburst, she grabbed him and yanked him toward her. For a moment it looked like she was going to kiss him, but at the last second, she head butted him. Hard. "Use your eyes, stupid!" She stepped back and rubbed her head, muttering under her breath about him being hardheaded. After a moment, Liliya shook her head and sighed. "You need to observe. Always look. You're not seeing everything."

The Huntress refused to let Lex quit, so she began to throw rocks at him. "Dodge." She said simply.

Alexandre blinked rapidly a few times after the headbutt. It wasn't an expected, but then again nothing was at that time. Liliya was clearly displeased by his performance; if she had fought like that on their first encounter, he would have lost to her easily. "How am I to see everything when your movements make no sense?" At first, he deflected the rocks and pieces of tree, irritated that she would fling them at him. But after a few projectiles, he began to dodge instead, using his speed to get out of the way in time.

"That's the point!" Liliya hissed. She began to kick rocks at him, too, adding to the rocks she was throwing at him. "See everything. Did you know right before someone makes a decision, you can see it? Seconds before. How? With your fucking eyes!" Liliya began to throw faster, wanting him to catch on. To fight back.

As irritated as he was, he was beginning to see the point. Even if he wasn't good at it, he understood what Liliya was trying to tell him. He watched as she took rocks in her hands, which told him were the next movement would begin. He watched for patterns, though there didn't seem to be one. With a stone in her right hand, Lex waited until the next rock soared toward him, watching her hips for that tell-tale twist of the waist. As soon as she started, the monster charged while lobbing a stone toward the leg still on the ground, hoping to catch her off guard.

Yes.

Liliya grinned as she switched her weight quickly, barely avoiding the charging monster. As he passed, she switched from throwing rocks, to throwing punches and kicks. "Fight back. Block me. Dodge. Get the upper hand."

Digging his hand in the dirt, Lex came to a stop then rushed in again, this time slower to better defend himself. He took several shots after failed blocks and clumsy strikes left him open to counters, but soon he was starting to catch on. Rather than make several attempts to attack and being shut down each time, Lex forced himself to wait, albeit impatiently, for a chance to strike. He landed no hits in the beginning, but was obviously improving.

Liliyas grin only widened as he got closer and closer to landing a substantial blow. But, she wasn't done. She used her feet to kick up rocks, alternating that with her fake outs and jabs. If he was going to outwit the Wolf he'd need all the obstacles he could handle. Then, and only then, would he even stand a chance. "Push me back, Alexandre. I know you can do better than this. Focus. Open your eyes!" She realized she was pushing him, and if she pushed too hard it could be bad for her. But she was not going to stop until he got it.

Steadily Alexandre's tactics changed. Though Liliya pushed him almost to the point of rage, he was forcing himself to watch. Really watch. What was it she said? Every action had a tell? He could see an action before they made it? While he didn't know if that was true, in and of itself, he could start to predict her movement based on which direction she pivoted and which hand or leg pulled back.

Still he waited, just a little longer, not wanting to rush in before he was ready. Just as her fist slid forward, Lex moved in, taking the hit as a graze across his cheekbone but closing the remaining distance. He took her firmly but the throat, not nearly hard enough to hurt her, while his leg sneaked in behind her, the whole action meant to cause her to lose balance. If successful, he would follow her to the ground with his other hand wrapped around her wrist.

Though the Huntress could have easily rolled him off of her, she did not. He had gotten the point, thus ending her 'training'. Lying flat on her back, she stared up at Lex, smiling a Hunters smile. "Not perfect, but you might actually stand a chance now." She made no effort to move, and though her words were not exactly praise, it was as good as he was going to get. Now, the real test would be using that technique in the heat of battle. Not letting Oleksy get the upper hand would prove difficult, but if she could help him get his anger under control, even for a time, killing him would be less of a suicide mission.

For a moment, Lex stayed perfectly still, staring into the eyes of the Hunter. For a moment he swore he could feel his heart beat, though he knew that was just a figment of his imagination. Staring into the eyes of the Huntress, the monster felt a violent mixture of emotions, each one not blending together but clashing like ocean waves on the jagged shoals of some god-forsaken beach, where there is no sun or darkness. Finally he picked himself up, deciding that there was nothing to actually be confused about.

"Thanks. I doubt i'm anywhere near ready to face off against the Wolf himself, but perhaps I will not be completely useless." For all his strength and speed, Alexandre kept one fact very near to the front of his mind: There was never a time when arrogance gained anyone anything except an extra opening through which blood would flow.

Liliya pushed herself up, and brushed the dirt off from her body. "Oleksy is not the only member of the Volkov name that we must kill. Nikolai is my fathers shadow, he will be there as well. I have no doubt that you could take him easily, but he will have to go down before my father. It will send him into a rage and he will slip up."

She failed to mention that killing Nikolai would more than likely result in her death, or close to it. Her brother was Oleksys pride and joy, a despicably perfect image of her father, and taking that from him will almost guarantee certain death.

"If he must be the first to die, then so be it." Alexandre relished the idea of pulling Niklaus' head straight off of his shoulders and presenting it to the Volkov father in a bag, but another thought was starting to grow in the back of his mind. The Doctor was resourceful and intelligent. He would have no doubt been growing his collection in Lex's absence, which meant a slew of new monsters that he could not predict. While grateful that he had Liliya to train him on how to kill her Hunter family, he could not train her to deal with that assortment.

For a moment Lex watched his companion, seeing if she was going to continue the contest or if she had had enough. "I can't imagine what we're going to be facing in that accursed place. The Doctor is very smart. He knows we're coming, so he will be ready."

"I am not going to say that I am prepared, or that I can take down everything, but I believe that we will get through whatever he has got for us." Liliya pulled a few daggers from their sheaths. "I know you've got your long sword, but can you use these with deadly accuracy?" She flipped one of the blades in her hand, her eyes on the monster. "Your strength and speed are quite good, but having more than one good set of skills will guarantee a slightly longer lifespan."

Sitting idle was not something she was good at. If she could keep herself busy then she would, and from her fighting experience with the monster, he could use some training.

:

Lex shook his head. "Not really. I was not made to fight from a distance." A weakness he openly shared with Liliya; it was true that Lex was put together for up-close brawling. His body was strong and fast, but it lacked the finesse for proficient ranged combat. He could hunt well enough, but in the heat of battle he would be useless at range. His body was created to absorb damage and to dish it out; he was no assassin.

"Then you're going to learn." Liliya moved to Lexs side and thrust a blade into his hand. "Show me how you hold it, and I'll gladly show you how you're wrong." She held her own in her hand, but kept flipping it, catching it by the tip even though she wasn't looking at it. She was a trained assassin, skilled in silent stalking and distance killing. Now, she didn't just kill people. Some of her bounties were wanted back alive, but she aided in many deaths. "The trick to figuring it out, is to trust the knife. Think of it as an extension of yourself, just like a regular sword."