Micheal stared at the cloaked figure in front of him. He seemed to take little note of the massive weight in his hand, as though Char's mountainous blow were a mild inconvenience. It would have been funny if it weren't so absurd.
A blow from an earth ranker - someone even Micheal would have hesitated to fight before being found - treated like a joke.
Maybe it was a reminder. Micheal had become a little too fond of Char a little too quickly. The kid was just too nice for his own good, and he wore his expressions as though he wanted to show the world his thoughts. It was endearing.
There was just something about the genuine way that he held himself that had Micheal vying for his friendship. The wariness of their very first meeting, while not entirely forgotten, was largely on its way to being an awkward memory for the both of them. The image of Char as a some monolithic threat to both his and Sam's lives was just that: an image.
That illusion had been crushed.
Micheal had seen his death in the strike that had been sent against him. It had been a long time since he had fought a truly hopeless battle, but he had forgotten exactly what it was to fear for his life. The image of a slowly approaching doom bearing down on him while completely incapable of stopping it was a stark reminder.
It was then that a black cloak entered the arena and put an end to the blow. The raising of an arm brought that incredible strike to a conclusion, sending out a shockwave that could equal any of Micheal's strikes and more.
Looking into that black cloak, that humble guard, brought Micheal to the realization that he had been missing.
He was never wrong to have thought of Char as a threat. His only misstep was the assumption that he was anything but. Even Char's incredible power as an earth ranker could be stymied by a mere guard. Micheal, by contrast, was nothing. He could be snuffed out by a single look. A single look.
What was Char's existence except a threat by that reckoning? His means were so far beyond Micheal's own that a comparison was insulting. Micheal wasn't a nert in the wind to that kind of power. That was the kind of power that made things happen. So as Micheal looked at the abashed figure of Char on the training ground, upset that he had take a duel against a bone ranker to such an extent, he built a distance. Despite his fears of Char, this was not an opportunity that could be allowed to go to waste.
Both he and Sam now had access to a noble's trainer, and the only cost was a few spars against some other lost or bone rankers? What was that except an excellent deal? If it meant being in the sight of an existential threat such as Char, than that was the cost of doing business. It just meant that he would need to be extra aware. Escape routes needed to be found and assurances made. Micheal would not let things end for him and Sam like that. Not if he could help it.
The only concern was Samantha. She and Char got along like a house on fire, and Micheal was unsure whether he could take that away from his best friend. He wanted to protect her, but he wasn't so lost in his own mind to take matters into his own hand. He would need to convince her properly.
As Micheal heard the hushed rebuke of the instructor, a gravel baritone to Char's lighter inflection, he decided this was not the case.
An internal war raged for a moment at his options, but in the end a thumbs up was good enough. First and foremost Sam needed to know he was ok. The rest would come after. He would have to tell her what he felt.
...
The black cloaked figure, a stone ranker of insane power and strength, easily capable of tearing a house from its foundations and throwing it anyone that might earn his ire, was balancing on one foot in pursuit of what he called 'prime balance'.
Micheal had been wrong in his assessment of the man. He was no simple guard, but the watching instructor for the group and also Char's personal tutor. His gruff appearance and gravely voice belied his true nature. That true nature being a maniac.
“Lost boy, you're form is excellent, but you seem afraid. You are not used to your power, and it shows,” the crazy man said.
“Char, you have the problem you always have. You're afraid,”
“Lost girl, you're doing a great job,” the insane man finished, ending with a thumbs up in Samantha's direction, which was met by a beaming smile on the part of Micheal's best friend. How she had managed to accept this as a simple matter of course was beyond him. He clearly had much to learn from her.
“I didn't get to see much today, but your problems are obvious enough. I will seek to fix them in time, but for now this will do. Char, it is your job to find more subjects for both them and you to spar with. Don't start, it was part of the deal and you know it.
“You two,” He said pointing between Micheal and Samantha. “Are going to be coming back here in three days so that I can see what you look like together. After that we can start talking about where to improve from there,”
As he twirled in place for a moment, Micheal had time to appreciate the complete and utter insanity that his life had become. It was true that he had expected some aspect of insanity when reaching to kill the Gods themselves, but this had grown far beyond his expectations.
A pirouette, followed by a a bow, punctuated this thought. Crazy though the instructor was, he was good. Micheal resisted the urge to clap at the sight.
Like a whirlwind of crazy, the instructor disappeared as quickly as he had come.
Turning sharply around Micheal searched for where the man had run off to, wanting more than anything to receive the advice of a noble that he had signed up for. Instead he had been left only with the idea that he was scared of his own power. A lost boy, scared of his own power? what a joke. Even if he wasn't technically lost, Micheal was not stupid enough to fear his own power out of some stupid allegiance to being lost.
He might have hated the Gods, but he was no fool. All the fools died early.
“Sorry about that guys. Lagran is a bit... weird, but he does good work,” Char said, clearly ashamed at his teacher.
“A bit weird, he says about the man spinning around like a dancer. Next he'll tell us Mike is a bit broody,” Samantha said, a teasing note entering her voice. Micheal thought about rebuking the statement, but he decided against it, lest he become the target of her teasing.
“Broody or not, at least I'm not half-way mad,” he said, pointedly looking at Char as he did. This kind of advice was not what he had risked both his and Sam's life for, and there was definitely some explaining to do on the part of their noble benefactor.
Char not holding up his end of the deal came as no surprise to Micheal after his revelation. Two lost simply weren't worth the time of a genuine instructor, even if a deal had been made. It was yet another point that began to become clarified after looking at it through a new lens - one that saw Char as more than the nervous wreck he appeared to be.
Micheal was not so cynical to believe that the boy's entire offer was a lie, but there was more to it than what the surface might have conveyed. The boy himself was as genuine as Micheal could have hoped for, but it wasn't Char that made the decisions. Heir or not, Char was the youngest scion of his house, and that meant that someone else was making the decisions . Someone that Micheal sincerely doubted cared about a Lost girl and her bone rank friend.
This insane instructor was simply the first piece of hard proof to that point. No noble house would truly have their scions trained by a lunatic like that, no matter how powerful they might be. If the need arose then the Matilda woman that had crushed Sam would have been a perfectly suitable trainer for the younger generation. She was more than powerful enough for the job. Micheal would have even placed her above the strange man that he had the displeasure of meeting that day.
Contemplating this, Micheal's eyes shifted into the dark look they sometimes took when necessary thoughts began to stir. Sam had always called them his 'crazy eyes'. Whether she had been joking or not had been one of the favorite running jokes for the pair. In outside company, the question of the underlying sanity in his eyes was much less funny.
An awkward quiet spread to the three of them, one that Micheal hoped would last. Char and Samantha were getting far too close for what the situation could allow. He did not need the two of them becoming a complication for the plans of the nobles. All they could hope for was to endure the machinations of the nobles, and complicating them was a one way trip to a bad ending for the two of them.
The kind of ending that ended up with the both of them as bloated corpses floating down the harbor. Or, worse yet, forgotten entirely. Their existence was not felt so widely that they could not be made to be 'forgotten' by a few well placed injections of bronze. There would be hardly any records to change at all.
Having seen the power of both one of their guards as well as one of their trainers, Micheal doubted they would have any trouble.
The sense of fear that those thoughts evoked reminded him of that first instance of fear that he had experienced when he had met the noble. The ice cold chill that ran down his spine even reminded him of how he had fought Richter to take control of the lower hall, only this fear felt so much more real than it had in his memories.
Micheal was terrified. He couldn't allow the nobles to start thinking Samantha and Char were too close. The awkward silence was good. It meant they were safe.
Micheal would not let Char and his family destroy what little he had pried from the world. Not if it killed him.
________________________________
Char watched the strange lost pair with some resignation.
He had lost himself in their duel earlier, that was true enough, but he doubted that was the reason that Micheal seemed to look at him with such hostility. Char might not have been the political genius that his parents had wanted him to be, but he was at least literate in the art of reading people.
And that was precisely why he was concerned. Micheal looked at him with a wariness that he thought he had grown used to in their, admittedly limited, interactions. But it was more intense than usual. More... Authentic. It wasn't his usual suspicion, made mostly for the sake of appearances. It was the same look he had displayed when Char first met the pair. He was being outright hostile in his suspicions, as if he were only a second away from declaring each and everyone of them as enemies of the state.
It was disconcerting.
Char thought he had made headway in their relationship, but clearly he had his work cut out for him. He wanted more from this than to simply become a nameless and evil benefactor for the pair's growth. If he had wanted that there were a million other options that would have allowed him to at least use the proper training grounds, instead of the vile one that they were forced to use for the time.
It was useful seeing them fight in a more natural manner, but he knew it was nothing more than an excuse. He wanted friends, and those two were his only options.
If he managed to benefit from watching them fight? All the better.
Samantha shot him a look from underneath Micheal's watching gaze. A smile without her usual teasing lit up Char from the inside out. A warm spot in the pit of his stomach reminded him that his goal wasn't without merit. There was more to friendship than suspicion and hostility. Samantha was the proof of that.
Micheal's cold stare, seemingly smelling the warmth of Samantha's smile, rested on Char like a wyvern, carefully toeing the line between hostility and respectful observance.
This was to be no easy task.
_________________________________
Leaving the Anise estate was about as ceremonious as Micheal might have expected it to be.
That was, not at all.
There was no need for ceremony for a lost and found orphan from the wrong side of town. Some might have said their leaving might have been the cause for a ceremony all its own. Maybe Char didn't think like that, but his family? Micheal figured that he was closer than not with that assessment.
“So,” Samantha began, and Micheal already knew where she was going. “I take it you made a decision about our 'noble benefactor', Micheal”
“I did,” he replied.
“Would you like to share that decision?”
“I would not”
They walked on in silence for a moment more at that. The splendor of Hedgeside and its sculpted gardens slowly gave way to the pedestrian manors of the less and less wealthy. Manors and mansions fell to family homes and prosperous stores of baked goods and flowers.
Eventually, those made way as well.
Smog blanketed the air, like the blackness of space had come during the day to spread its void.
Dilapidation became commonplace. Slowly, at first. The divider between Hedgeside and Dockside was not so uniform. But slowly, perpetually, factories replaced homes. Hovels replaced those soon enough too.
Deeper and deeper into familiarity.
It could have been called a descent, but that wasn't exactly a fair statement. A descent implied there might be further down to go.
As the hovels took a turn for the worse, and the smog took on a thickness that seemed impossible for what should have been a gas, that 'descent' was complete.
The orphanage, tucked away in some forgotten part of the city, surrounded by trash, broken and destroyed buildings, and the markings of what used to be, stood strong. The only building in the middle of the city that had yet to fall apart. Perhaps it simply hadn't gotten the message yet.
“Home sweet home,” Samantha said, finally breaking the silence of their short walk.
As if to punctuate that statement, a nesting wyvern mewed into the distance. Sharp, screeching cries rung out into the artificial night of the smog-lit sky. A sense of nostalgia filled Micheal at that sound. It truly was a homecoming.
Though the opulence and splendor of the nobility had been novel in its own way, he thought he would always appreciate his true home far more.
“Home sweet home indeed,” he replied, finding that somewhere deep down he almost meant it. He wondered when that had truly become the case. There was certainly nothing that screamed 'welcome home' about the environment of his home in the first or lower hall. It wasn't even that the sight of the wooden gate filled him with a great deal of nostalgia.
Maybe it was just the familiarity of the slums. Too much time away, he wagered.
Samantha walked ahead of him as he made his way to the door, placing herself in front of it. He looked at her for a moment, and reached for the handle despite her.
As if she were a guardian of the door, her hand shot out and intercepted his. Despite his greatly improved strength as one of the chosen, Micheal found himself unwilling to tear his hand from her grasp. Capable though he was, Micheal doubted he had the capacity to do it.
“I think I'd like to hear about that explanation Micheal,” her voice was ice. Maybe she'd be found by the lesser God of snow? Perhaps frost? It would be fitting, at the very least.
There it was again. His full name. He'd always hated the way people shortened his name. Even when people called him 'Mike' or 'Micky' it sent him into a rage. When had it become so normal to hear her call him Mike?
“Another day,” he repeated.
Samantha let go of his hand at that, but stood in position at the front of the gate. Again, Micheal considered moving her, and again he found that he couldn't. Some part of him refused to use force on her, even if he knew it wouldn't hurt her. It was a line that, no matter how hard he might try, he could not cross. Not unless he were to become something that he didn't think he would like.
So he stood and watched his friend, standing as if a steel automaton to the door of the orphanage. If someone were to walk by that might even look a couple that were trying to pawn off a child at the orphanage, with the mother too staunch and unwilling to do what had to be done.
“Today, Micheal,” she said again. Her tone brokered no rebuke. This was not a question. She wanted an answer and she would get it.
Even standing in a doorway, weakened from having her will crushed by what could only have been a stone ranker, Samantha was more willful than he could have ever hoped to be. Some might have called it a bad thing, but not Micheal. It was that will that had stood against a power three entire ranks higher than her own and won.
Something told him that, no matter what, there would be no match in all the world for his best friend. Even himself.
“Char isn't all there is to this deal,” he began. “There's more than just him, and he isn't the one that pays for our expenses”
“I know that Micheal. You know that. What's the problem?” She replied, undeterred. Of course she knew, she wasn't an idiot. She had probably seen through his families means days ago. It was Micheal that was the stupid one for taking so long to notice, and from what it seemed, for making it so obvious.
“So you understand why it's not a good idea to get so buddy-buddy with Char?” He asked, sure that the answer would be a complex ploy to wring out more goods from the kid's family. Sam was smart. She would have something figured out.
“No, Micheal. I don't see.”
Still staring at his friend, prepared to grin a malicious grin alongside hers, Micheal did a double take at her response. Looking her in the eyes for a moment, as if to confirm her sincerity, he stood, nearly agape. How could she not see? It was obvious.
Why would his family make a deal when they could simply have it all? Why trade with a bunch of lost kids when they could take whatever they wanted and just kill them after the fact. Do the song and dance, and when the curtain falls, get rid of them. It was the only option.
“What do you mean?” He asked, a measured response in his tone.
“I mean, I don't see the correlation. Char's family is strong, Micheal. Really strong. This is the kind of strength I use to dream about, and they have it. I can see it, Micheal. And they're showing us how to get there. Char, is showing us how to get there.”
Micheal stared up at his friend at that, looking for any sign that she might have wavered. As he might have expected - nothing. There wasn't a single moment of hesitation in anything that she had said to him. Just as she had always been with him. Just as he had always been with her.
“It's not Char's family that are giving us that strength, Sam. It's Char, and he isn't the one that is making the decisions. Not all of them, at least. His family is just letting this happen for his sake, and then we're done for. As soon as they see we're not useful to him anymore, we're done. That, is the decision I made. We take what we can get, and we leave. Simple as that. Char isn't our friend, and we won't be sticking around to see how he feels about it. We can just hope that they don't bother to find us,” not that it would have been difficult for them.
Samantha looked at him a little sadly when he finally finished. It wasn't the same piteous looks he got from some of the more sympathetic chosen that he had seen as a child. It wasn't even the empty pity of the rich nobles that had occasionally visited the orphanage when he was young. It wasn't even the pity that he'd seen on the faces of the priests when he'd first brought in his younger sister as a newborn.
It was a pity beyond words. It was understanding.
“Char is better than that,” She said simply, stepping away from her position in front of the door. “You just can't see it yet,”
Micheal looked at her, completely failing to understand what she was saying. Char wasn't the problem. It was his family that he didn't trust.
“He's not that good, Sam. Not as good as you,” he said, almost unaware of what he was saying until it was done.
“He's better,” She said, finally making her way into the orphanage ahead of him, ending their conversation then and there. He could have chased her, but they both knew he wouldn't. Besides, he needed to think.