Prayer, Micheal thought, was a good time to reflect. It was true that he needed to be determined in order to get the full benefits of his prayer, but it hardly mattered what he was so determined about. Perhaps if he prayed to Nero-Un, or one of the petty greater Gods, he might have been caught and punished for not showing his due subservience to those 'great' beings that were so his betters.

But that wasn't the case for him. The elder Gods had seen him fit for their attention, only briefly, but that was more than enough for the Greater Gods to avoid him. That was his best guess and hope, anyhow.

It meant that so long as he was adequately determined, his body would continue to push its way up into the further reaches of the bone-rank, maybe even approaching its end with some time. It had taken only a few weeks to get him to the upper-middle of bone, and he didn't see the remaining time to be much of an obstacle.

That made sense, given bone was the lowest ranking for all chosen, but it also meant that he needed to better understand his apostle if he wanted to move onto earth-rank, and that was quickly becoming a problem for him.

In his and Samantha's last fight, Micheal had overestimated his abilities against the fire Chosen, and it had cost him some serious pain. The burns that covered him were barely within Vanriel's purview to heal, which was not something he wanted to make a habit of. It was his first actual weakness thus far, and it pained him.

Going from Lost to Chosen of the Elder Gods was a more jarring transition than he had expected, and the results of that were quickly rearing their ugly head's. Just because he was Chosen, did not mean he could shrug off the fire from the Chosen of fire's own Apostle. The crystal that imbued him was simply too weak.

Even now, sitting on his bed and praying, Micheal could feel it inside of him, subtly reinforcing him as he grew. Bones grew stronger, muscles tighter, and his mind sharper. It was exactly as it had always been described. But even so, he failed to take into account exactly how much stronger he was becoming. More precisely, how strong his body was becoming compared to how it had once been.

Even in the halls he would sometimes walk about as though he was still lost, carefully avoiding chosen that might hurt him if he were to make the wrong move. Seeing his eyes in the mirror each day, with their perfect black and white, was equally as disconcerting. The mark of the fair, that white stripe in the middle of his eye, a constant reminder.

That reminder now served no purpose but to distract him from what he now was, however.

He wasn't Lost anymore, but Found. He was also a Chosen, in some roundabout way that he still struggled with. His everchanging capabilities proved to be a source of more doubt than he had thought, and that problem was only going to grow worse until he addressed it.

For the time being he knew how strong relative to himself the other Bone-rankers should be, but when he grew stronger? It changed the dynamic. That was only bound to get worse as he approached the higher ranks where he didn't have much experience. All he knew about Earth-rankers were that they could probably crush him with one of their fingers if they ever felt the need, and when it came to Stone-rankers, they were best ignored.

From there, it only grew more sparse. So how was he supposed to fight someone if he didn't know how strong someone in the peak of Bone-rank was supposed to be? That was his problem, and it was also his biggest concern with his new weakness.

All he could tell exactly was that the crustal inside of him made him sturdier, but not how sturdy it made him exactly, and when he didn't know how strong it was, than how would he be able to put it up against someone he only had a rough idea of in regards to their strength?

It was suicide, plain and simple, and it had already cost him some fairly severe burns and scrapes that he could have done well enough without.

So that was what he focused on as he prayed. How strong was his body? How close was he to reaching the peak of Bone-rank? Was his Apostle getting stronger as well?

He pushed all of his focus inwards, until he could practically feel the crystal resonating inside of him. It wanted to be acknowledges, and some part of Micheal was disgusted by that. A repulsion for the divine that he had tried to leave by the wayside in his pursuit of practicality bubbling up inside of him. It was nearly instinctual, but it still ate away at him. He had decided to accept the taint that was inside of him, so why did his mind deny him? He wanted to let the Apostle tell him his progress - how far he was until he would breach through the next rank, or at least until his body would grow no stronger, but his mind denied him still.

It was a wall that he struggled to overcome. One that would, eventually, allow him to see how strong he was fully, if only in an instinctual way. So he continued to focus, getting the barest hints from the thing that disgusted him so.

Deep down Micheal already knew what those instincts told him. He knew he had breached the upper-middle end of Bone, where he was closer to Earth than not, but when that instinct finally burst free from that mental wall, it was an understanding.

A deluge of information about himself and where he was. It was the understanding that all of the Chosen Spoke about when they had told others of their ranks. Suddenly, as that wall crumbled away, Micheal knew he was almost three-quarters of the way through Bone, and that he didn't have long to go until he reached the first great divider.

And it was then that, spiritually exhausted, he fell back into his bed, finished with his prayer for first bell, and contemplating how this would help him in the future,

The thoughts of Char and Sam, and his confusion at her thoughts, were nothing but the niggling anxiety that rocked him to a gently sleep.

......

hours later, nearing fourth bell, Micheal awoke with a splitting headache and an understanding of why Chosen always spoke so harshly of epiphanies. He knew more about himself, sure, and it was amazing. Never before had he known his physical self so intimately. But the way his head throbbed for the coming hour almost made him question the validity of his new found ability.

He would only hope that it was good enough. Feeling within himself a sensation that he would not define as anything other than strange to the briny deep and back, he felt his strength. He imagined it as a jug of liquid - what that ambiguous, but very on-theme, black liquid was - remained a mystery to him. Maybe it was potential? Liquid power? Who cared about that crap.

To Micheal it filled the jug to around the three-quarter mark, and he knew, thanks to this ability, that it was how much of the Bone-rank he had conquered. His body would cease growing stronger the moment he filled the jug, and it would be up to him to build the proper link to his Apostle from there. After all, brute strength was only a small piece of what it was to be Chosen of the Gods. They didn't need stupid and talentless mortals to be their playthings. They wanted to see interesting bouts between their toys.

For Micheal, he was content with fixing one of his biggest problems. He still figured he would struggle to figure out exactly how strong his crystal strengthened organs and body were, but with his new ability? The problem was at least mitigated. From there it was only his reliance on healing, which he had some ideas on how to fix.

All that was left was to visit Dawn, and then Char. He struggled to decide which captured his fear more. The beating would be vicious, yes, but seeing Samantha befriend a threat like that? It threatened to turn his veins to ice. At least that insane instructor would be a welcome addition. A day suddenly felt a very short wait to be face-to-face with that mad man.

A knock at the door reminded him of a mad-woman that demanded his attention as well.

Micheal was not entirely sure how Dawn figured out where he was at any given time. He generally just placed it in a little box in his mind labelled 'things that don't make sense', and was done with it. His body, reminding him of just exactly how upset it was with him, cursed this ability of hers with vitriol.

This manifested as a very loud groan.

“I heard that, Micheal!”

.....

Getting pounded by Dawn was becoming distressingly common to Micheal, in that he very nearly forgot exactly how abnormal all of this was. The girl's utter calm while doing so was both enigmatic to him, and also slightly insulting. What bother Micheal was not just his own growing sense of helplessness - that was quite nearly familiar by this point - but his indifference toward it.

it wasn't as if he no longer felt annoyed at the way each of his probing strikes was met with brutal counters, or even the strikes he took that nearly brought him to his knees. He still hated it, but as they fell into a gentle routine, one fight after another, one fall before the next, it was calming. in a roundabout way.

It was nice to see Dawn with that light in her eyes as she fought. At least, it was better than the alternative. Those eyes of hers that seemed to scheme at everyone and everything they had a chance to. Talking to her, or more accurately, being talked to by her, gave him the distinct feeling of a nert in the eyes of a tabby wyvern. Prey before a predator.

In the eyes of Dawn he was yet another piece to be handled, and it scared him more than any ten bruisers combined. The powerful he could handle. Lost as he had been, the world was a powerful threat to him, what was one more atop a pile the size of a planet? But cunning? That was a foe altogether more deadly. Cunning was the tool of the weak, and for it to be adopted by someone as powerful as Dawn? It didn't bode well for Micheal.

So to see her eyes absent of that brilliance, it was a relief for sure. seeing his own concentration mirrored in them was almost endearing.

Dawn moved in for a low kick. Dodging with a short side-step was the best move, but that meant Dawn knew it was as well, which meant it was smarter to defy convention.

Micheal sent some of his will toward his shin, and with a crunching of bone and sinew, a geode exploded from his shin, right in the path of Dawn's kick. It was a probing move by her, so she was able to redirect the blow to his unprotected thigh with little issue, which left her own back leg more exposed that even.

A sharp flick of his arm sent a piece of crystal flying from his arm which Dawn expertly maneuvered around, revealing the fist she had kept concealed behind her body, and revealing her kick for the feint it was. A flash of white followed, and Micheal was sent once more to the floor groaning. He was sure he'd had that one. The thought almost made it hurt more.

“Better than usual, but still not good,” the tall girl said as she looked down to him.

“There are going to be fighters in the tournament that will tear you apart if you fight like that,”

“I don't doubt it,” he said as he rose to his feet in a lurching stumble. That hit had knocked something out of whack for sure. A trip to Vanriel appeared to be in his near future, excellent.

“And how, do you suppose, will we counter that,”

“I imagine it will consist of a great deal of effort on your part, by the way you're glaring at me,”

“I imagine you're right, but not quite in the way you think,”

Micheal nodded at that assessment, content to let her continue with her train of thought. Better to listen than speak when you were at liberty to have your skull crushed in by an errant mood. Especially when the one doing the skull crushing was finally about to open up about how exactly Micheal was going to get up to snuff in time for the tournament. A little under a month and a half was a long time for one living on the street, but it inched ever closer to not being enough.

Thoughts of Sam flooded Micheal at that line of thought. Thoughts of his lost friend. It would have to be enough.

“You see, Mike, you're growing. Quick. Quick enough that people are starting to notice. No one important - at least not yet, but people nonetheless,”

“And that's bad, of course,” he moaned, playing dumb. He didn't need Dawn reminding him to be careful. He was more than taking care of the paranoia on his own.

She sent a scowl in his direction at being interrupted, but it seemed to be one of her nicer scowls, which meant he wouldn't be hit in the skull after seeing it, which he considered a positive.

“Yes, it's bad Micheal, and no I'm not nearly stupid enough to fall for that act, so lets keep the childish shit out of it,” she snapped, which drew Micheal's attention in the worst possible way. An emotional Dawn was not something that he could plan for, Immediately his eyes darted around for an exit strategy if things went south, at least as much as he could with the observant Dawn watching over him.

“But it's not entirely a bad thing, Mike. Notoriety is good - especially after that incident with you and the girl,”

“That was a misunderstanding,”

“You caved his skull in with a metal pipe,”

“Technically it was Sam that did the actual caving,”

“Regardless, people are noticing you and not in the way that begets a friendly chat. You don't need me to tell you exact what people are going to think of two kids with black eyes killing a fucking baker, Micheal. They want you beaten,”

Micheal bit back the witty response he had planned for that line of questioning. Beaten wasn't just a beating. that was a flogging. A beating was an execution of the worst possible sort. It was just a man in chains being beaten, stroke by steady stroke, into an early grave. It was the sort of death they gave to the lost who wanted to be more than what the world had told them they were to be. It was a death for those who acted outside their place.

“And how do you suppose we can use that, Dawn,” he questioned, finally getting to the heart of the matter. With a wicked smile replacing the cold frown on Dawn's face Micheal knew it was a question she had been waiting to answer, eager at showing off her latest installment of 'getting Micheal killed before twenty'.

“Well, there's no better trial than trial by fire, and I happen to have found a very, very fine kindling indeed,” she smiled. On any other face that smile might have looked positively friendly. On hers. - a face too beautiful to come from an orphanage, and yet too blemished by personality to come from the nobility - it was positively terrifying.