I had never used a Combot to train so vigorously. I always had to hold back my true potential in school so as to not endanger any of the nearby students. Now, however, was different. It was just me and this robot in the damned forest and I didn’t have to hold back.

Combots were an amazing piece of technology. They were personalised robots used for the most effective training. Combots were always about the same height, or the desired height, of the person using them to train. Their bodies were a sleek, perfectly clean white, which caused their blue, almost holographic, eyes to stick out marvellously. Their arms allowed for perfect, human-like movement whilst also appearing robotic. This robotic appearance was complimented by their ‘legs’. In place of legs, they had a single metal pole that was attached to a set of four wheels that allowed them to move.

This Combot was the same Combot that I had first used when I got to RoCity. It had seen me grow and train harder and harder with each session.

It held two Celestial Bronze swords on that day, one in each ‘hand’.

‘Ice Breathing, First Form,’ I murmured. ‘Glacial Lance.’

I shot forward, extending my arm fully. My blade glanced across the side of the Combot’s body.

It returned just as much speed and power.

The two of us traded blows rapidly, neither of us able to get a significant blow to the other. But that was the point. It was supposed to be just as good as me.

It had been a week since I’d found Jeremy. The image of his corpse and the grief of the death itself had dogged me every single day. I had only been able to distract myself by training insanely hard. The thoughts couldn’t get me if I was too busy trading blows with a Combot.

I leant back at the waist, just enough for one of the Combot’s blades to barely miss my nose. I returned by striking it in the arm with my own blade.

‘Fire Breathing, Eighth Form: Blazing Torches,’ I breathed, causing my swords to light up with orange flames.

As I was training with the Combot, Cecilia and Harvey were doing their test. In just a few hours, they might have permission to step foot on the battlefield.

Both of them were desperate for some action. Or, to be more accurate, to help.

I admired that about them both. They were willing to throw everything away just to save the world. It was for that reason that I also admired all of my other friends, but something about my admiration for Harvey and Cecilia was different.

They had gone out of their way to do it. They had signed up. Given up their ordinary, peaceful school life. My other friends had had practically no choice. This was where they lived.

Part of me would have preferred it if neither Cecilia nor Harvey ever stepped foot on the battlefield. I wanted them to stay safe. The thought of them risking their lives almost made me feel sick.

I couldn’t lose someone again.

Once again narrowly avoiding a blow from the Combot, I thought about everybody that I’d lost.

My parents. My aunts and uncles. My cousins. Grandparents. Henry. Grandad. Jeremy. And that wasn’t even including the hundreds that had died because of me. For me.

The Combot stabbed me in the arm.

‘Fire Breathing, Fifth Form,’ I murmured. ‘Flaming Wheel.’

My flaming sword slashed across the main body of the Combot, causing it to yank its blade out from my arm.

‘Combot, stop,’ I said sternly.

Immediately, the Combot froze in place.

I took a deep breath.

Behind the Combot, I could see the tree that Jeremy’s body had been resting against only eight days ago. The image of it flashed through my mind.

My stomach flipped. I had never seen anything like it. And I hadn’t been prepared for it, either.

Sure, part of me had known that I would find him in there, or at least speculated as such. But nothing could have prepared me to see his body mutilated.

His ears on his lap next to one of his eyes. The fingernails torn off of his right hand, which had then been nailed to the tree.

Jeremy had been forced to watch them do that to him. He had seen it happen, not just the after-effects like everybody else.

Part of me wondered what it actually was that had killed him. Had they stopped when he eventually fell to blood loss? Or did they deface him more after he had passed?

Grunting, I threw The Santrrer Sword at the tree. The blade sank into the bark, which was no longer red, and created a sound that made all the nearby birds fly away into the sky.

I threw my other sword with another grunt. It hit the tree just above the first sword that I had thrown.

Panting, I glared at the tree. I could see his body like a ghost.

Maltor would pay. I would hurt him so incredibly badly that he would never even think of standing up to me again. No, I would kill him. I would make it so that he simply could not stand up to me ever again.

Killing his own brother…what could have swayed him into authorising that decision? I was certain that he was behind it. There was no way that four random men had woken up one day and decided to brutally torture and murder a teenager.

‘Combot,’ I said quietly. ‘Resume, but in hand-to-hand combat, please.’

The swords in its hands disappeared. Then it wheeled towards me with tremendous speed, its arms raised into a perfect guard.

The Combot and I perfectly avoided each other’s strikes, only occasionally getting an actual heavy blow through.

At one point, a rustle behind me caused me to stop in my tracks. This was foolish, as the Combot immediately landed a staggering blow that sent me crashing to the ground.

‘Apologies, Albert,’ it said robotically.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I murmured, getting to my feet. ‘But freeze for a second, please.’

I turned to see what it was that had made the noise. It was a Death Strider.

It walked slowly towards me, head low, sniffing the grass. Watching its baggy red flesh sway slightly as it walked made me want to throw up.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Then my heart dropped. They were attracted to the presence of death.

‘No way…’ I breathed. ‘There can’t be another…’

As it turns out, there was not another dead body in the forest.

The Death Strider walked forward sniffing the grass until it got to my feet. It sniffed the tips of my shoes for a few seconds before raising its head to look at me.

It stared at me with its sad black eyes silently. Neither of us made a noise.

It prodded me in the stomach with its large red nose. The gesture seemed playful and innocent, but I would have rathered that it did not touch me.

Why was it taking an interest in me? As far as I was aware, I was alive and kicking.

I kissed my teeth. ‘Bugger off. You’re not gonna get a bite of me.’

It seemed insistent on participating in a staring contest against me. Even after an entire minute of looking at me, it hadn’t blinked once. I was beginning to wonder whether it even had eyelids.

‘Combot, power off,’ I said, turning away from the Death Strider.

I felt almost bad leaving the Death Strider, but it was doing me no good staring into its eyes.

Grabbing my swords from the tree, I sighed. Everything had felt kinda meaningless after Jeremy’s death, and I did not know why. His death shouldn’t have affected me as much as it was, right?

I strode over to my Combot, firmly placing my hand on its arm. Praying nobody was at school on a Sunday other than the test-takers, I shadow-travelled to my school’s Gym.

Thankfully, nobody was, so I was able to put my Combot away with ease. Once I was finished, I merely shadow-travelled to my room in The Tower.

A major downside to shadow-travelling so quickly, with such short breaks in between, was that it drained my energy. Shadow-travelling once was exhausting, and I often used it as though it were nothing.

I took my magic belt off and then sank into the sofa in my living room.

I knew why it felt meaningless. Not only had we lost Jeremy, but all we were really doing was waiting for the nineteenth of June. Three weeks. Three weeks of waiting just to beat the shit out of him again.

Gods, I really wanted to have my go at him again. It had been far too long. He couldn’t beat me. Everybody knew I would win. That was probably why he was waiting so long to attack again.

I do not know quite how long I sat on the sofa swimming in my own dark thoughts, but at some point, I was interrupted by a knock on my door.

Excitement flooded my body at the thought that perhaps it was Cecilia or Harvey on the other side. Maybe they’d passed the test.

Disappointment quickly replaced the excitement as I opened the door and found Ethan standing there.

‘I thought you were Cecilia or Harvey,’ I said bluntly. ‘But come in. What do you want?’

‘I’m here to check that you haven’t gone insane,’ he explained simply as I shut the door behind him. ‘Someone’s gotta check on you, and Cecilia can’t do it cuz she’s doing the test.’

‘Do you have any word about how it’s going for either of them?’

‘I’m as clueless as you,’ he said. ‘Can I sit down?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I replied quietly. ‘You know you can make yourself at home here.’

He grinned. ‘Thanks.’

He crashed onto the sofa happily and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

‘Want a drink?’ I asked, already making my way over to the kitchen.

‘Nah, I’m fine, thanks,’ was his response, which surprised me. ‘I am only here to check on you, not to be treated like a king.’

‘I’m fine, man,’ I sighed as I walked over to the living room. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you need me to give you a list?’

I smirked at him. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

He smirked back. ‘Anything in particular troubling you on this fine day, Prime Minister?’

‘Shut up,’ I scoffed. ‘And no, Ethan. I’m fine.’

‘Whatever you say,’ he shrugged. ‘You been training yet?’

‘Yeah, I took the Combot out to the forest,’ I explained. ‘It got me pretty good in the arm.’

I thought back to the Death Strider taking a particularly keen interest in me. I chose not to speak about it.

Ethan raised his eyebrows slightly. ‘It got a hit on you? And here I was thinking you were invincible.’

I scoffed again. ‘Everyone treats me as though I’m a God.’

‘Have you seen yourself fight? You single-handedly took on the French Navy.’

‘You’re just as powerful, idiot,’ I said quietly. ‘You looked like you were dancing around everyone when Righello’s squad showed up.’

He chuckled at that. ‘That was my best performance yet.’

‘Hang on, hang on,’ I said quickly. ‘Didn’t you defeat big bad Maltor himself?'

'Now it’s your turn to shut up,’ Ethan snapped. I don’t think he meant to sound so harsh. ‘That was a draw at best.’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, boss.’

‘We should train together sometime,’ Ethan suggested, seemingly brightening up. ‘That’d be fun.’

I stared at him blankly for a moment.

‘Ethan…we trained together…for six months.’

He laughed again. ‘We did, didn’t we? But there’s no harm in spending an hour or two training together again.’

‘You’re right,’ I replied, grinning. ‘We can do it closer to the nineteenth.’

‘Sounds to me like a done deal.’

The two of us lounged in my living room for about an hour or so. We talked and laughed together. I almost forgot about the dark feeling at the back of my mind.

And, again, the happiness was interrupted. But this time it was exactly who I predicted it to be.

I opened the door to my room to find Cecilia. She looked up into my eyes with such a raw level of happiness that it instantly boosted my already good mood.

Behind her, unnoticed by me for a few seconds, stood Harvey. He, too, looked extraordinarily happy.

Cecilia practically dived onto me, wrapping her arms tightly around my torso. I, in return, wrapped my arms around her just as tightly.

‘Get a room, would you?’ Harvey teased as he walked past me.

I heard him and Ethan greet each other, and the familiar sound of people sitting on a sofa followed.

I stretched one arm out to shut the door, careful not to end the hug with Cecilia.

‘Albert,’ she whispered, ‘we passed!’

I squeezed her gently. ‘I knew you would. I’m proud of you.’

‘What about me?’ Harvey roared, in mock anger, from the living room. I heard Ethan tell him to pipe down.

Cecilia squeezed me as I continued, ‘How hard was it?’

‘Doable,’ she replied, still squeezing. ‘I passed really well according to one of the examiners. I scored way above the minimum.’

‘I don’t even know what to say,’ my words were quiet, and they only got quieter as she gently pulled out of the hug. ‘I can’t even show you how proud I am.’

She smiled sadly at me. ‘I can avenge him now.’

‘You can and you will,’ I smiled back. ‘Come on, I think Harvey’s gonna start complaining if we don’t give him some attention.’

‘He’s like a pet,’ Cecilia joked as she took my hand.

The two of us walked into the living room, where Harvey was practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

‘That was the most fun I’ve ever had doing a test,’ he said first. ‘And I actually passed!’

Ethan scoffed. ‘Are you not used to?’

Harvey smirked. ‘Listen, just cuz I’m the cousin of Albert Santrrer doesn’t mean I’m exactly ‘smart’.’

Cecilia laughed. My heart soared. ‘You’re good at Charms, though.’

‘Not the best,’ Harvey shrugged. ‘But I’m good enough to fight. And I’ve gotta keep getting better so I can smash that dickhead’s face in.’

‘You’ll get your chance,’ I said quietly. ‘He’s definitely coming on the nineteenth. I just know it.’

I wasn’t lying either. It was one of those weird feelings that you just knew to trust. He would definitely make an appearance on that day specifically.

‘Yeah, if you don’t kill him first,’ Harvey reasoned. ‘I almost feel sorry for him. You’re gonna destroy him, aren’t you?’

‘Oh, you should’ve seen the last fight they had,’ Ethan scoffed. ‘It’s a miracle Maltor’s still alive.’

I didn’t bring up why Maltor was still alive.

‘We saw him fight Righello, though,’ Cecilia said, smiling at me and squeezing my hand gently. ‘That was a spectacle and a half.’

I smiled back down at her. ‘Thanks. And, as far as I’m aware, Maltor isn’t as strong as Righello. It should be a dominant fight in my favour.’

‘It will be,’ Ethan said exasperatedly. ‘I know it will be.’

‘Get him good, would you?’ Harvey said cheekily. ‘Avenge Jeremy and end this damned war.’

‘I’ll keep him alive just long enough for you to have your fun,’ I joked, but I knew damn well I’d kill him if given the chance. ‘Then we’ll kill him together.’

Harvey grinned.

‘All that’s left to do now is wait, right?’ Cecilia said. ‘We’ve passed the test, you’re one hundred per cent gonna kick his ass; that’s all there is.’

‘Asbel’s gotta give you guys your weapons,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Gods, even I’m excited to see what he’s done. He always goes above and beyond what’s needed.’

‘Yeah, he made a flying magical ship for fun,’ I nodded. ‘I’m almost jealous.’

‘He’s probably made you stuff as well,’ Ethan said. ‘Like more explosive balls or something. Or some other magical thing.’

I chuckled. ‘I won’t even need my swords if Asbel gives me any more explosive balls. I’ll just chuck ‘em at Maltor and he won’t be able to do anything.’

Everyone smiled at that.

‘When are you two planning on telling the rest of the group that you passed?’ Ethan asked, looking at Harvey and Cecilia each in turn.

‘As soon as possible,’ Harvey said loudly, jumping to his feet. ‘Are you two gonna come with us?’

Ethan and I looked at each other. We shrugged slightly. We had nothing better to do.

‘Yeah, we might as well,’ I said warmly, smiling. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

I felt a weird feeling in me at that moment. Hope. The only word that could possibly describe it. Hope. I do not know where this feeling came from, but I was hoping that it didn’t go away anytime soon.

Three more weeks. That was all we had left. Then it would all be over.