The True Queen

"Stand up, what are you doing? Are you gonna stay on the floor for the rest of your life?" Anna's instructor for martial arts is bashing her with words. "You're so pathetic! Not only you look horrible! You're horrible in martial arts too! You're useless!"

Sir Romanoff, a Russian martial arts instructor who's also a member of the underworld, shouted at Anna's face. The man's lean and powerful, standing at six feet and two inches. Anna looked up and tried to stand but her feet's giving up on her.

She gritted her teeth and moved, standing upright but trembling. Anna stared at the man and threw a straight hook followed by a roundhouse kick, but the man blocked it and pushed her away. She almost stumbled, but she attacked him relentlessly.

Punches and kicks are thrown and blocked. Anna didn't stop in her attacks, but she keeps getting pushed.

"I admire your relentlessness, but it's useless," Romanoff taunts her. "You're nothing, and you will forever be nothing!"

Anna felt all the blood rushing through her body. She felt like a tide of energy rushes to her muscles and brain. Anna spotted Romanoff's weakness in the blink of an eye. She attacked, executed a feint, and her body leaned to the side, giving him a direct hit of her fist.

Romanoff stepped back and grabbed her hand, twisted it, and pushed her down. Anna panted hard, feeling the weakness in her body. He grinned at Anna.

"You can't defeat me," Romanoff said to her. "But I can say that you've made so much improvement in this past year. You're weak, but you work hard."

Anna nodded; she's used to not speaking to other people. When she speaks, it's only a few words and nothing more. A beautiful woman walked towards them, clad in a blood-red dress. It's no other than her instructor for etiquette and dance, Ms. Sheena.

Anna sighed, getting ready for the next round of torture. For her, dancing is torture because she's a terrible dancer, but she needs these classes. She also has a music class, chess class, singing classes, language classes, and weapons class.

Anna has academic classes too majoring in business and law. She's jam-packed with different courses that her mother thought necessary for her. But the law degree she's studying is what she wants. She wants to be a criminal defense lawyer someday.

For the past year, her "mother," Marianna has filled her with knowledge for her to become the ideal Han daughter and to get her revenge entirely.

"Looks like you're defeated again," Sheena says in a seductive voice. She's a woman born to seduce. Sheena stared at Romanoff and sashayed towards him. "I told you to go easy on my student, right. ?"

Anna watched them talked intimately, or rather, Ms. Sheena talked to Romanoff. She can see as the latter stiffened when Sheena's nail's touched his arm.

Romanoff snarled. "Stay away from me, woman!" Sheena giggled as she stared at the retreating back of Romanoff. One of these days, that man will be eating at the palm of her hands. Sheena keeps anticipating such a day.

"Anna," finally, Ms. Sheena noticed her. "How's your day, darling? Today, we're going to practice walking again."

Anna stiffened. Another boring walking training again, she thought to herself. Sheena has thought her a lot of things, but walking exercise seemed so dull to her. She doesn't have the grace to move like a swan and as graceful as a dancer.

But she has to do this, and so she did.

*****************

Anna stared outside, watching the moon in the sky. She's almost twenty now and soon; she'll be back to the real world to face her demons. She clenched her necklace; this is the only one they didn't get. This is her mother's heirloom, the only remembrance left of her.

"Anna," she heard someone call her, and she turned around. It's her other adoptive mother, Marianna. This woman has changed her life and made her to who she is today. She has become a different person from Anna Rong. Now she's Arianna Han, the darling of the Hans.

"It's finally time, Anna. Today is the day that your life will change forever," Marianna says in a solemn voice.

The day has finally come.