Shay could taste blood in her mouth. A moment later, she felt it drip down her nose.

That was weird. Monty didn’t even come close to hitting her in the face.

Something hit her outstretched palm; her fingers wrapped around it, automatically.

She knew what it was before she brought it forward: a wooden training sword.

“Jiang!” Bishop called.

A second sword got tossed into the arena. Mister Jiang snatched it out of the air with ease.

Right. That was only fair~

Swords?

Swords...

Shay had a sense of confidence that she could win... but zero of the logic to explain why. She had less than 10 hours of training with a sword. Then, since her opponent had one too, she didn’t have a reach advantage-- or a speed advantage.

Monty tapped his sword on his shoulder like it was a baseball bat.

Yeah.

Shay didn’t know why, but that really, really pissed her off.

Swords, then.

She lunged forward with a quick thrust-- Monty slapped it away with his hand.

He tried to counter-attack.

Shay caught the blade with hers... and... it was like magic. Her sword skimmed over his until it was near the base. Then, leveraging the force, she twisted it away-- smacking his side at the same time.

Nice.

“Fuck!” Monty stepped back, rubbing where he got hit. “God damn it!”

Shay calmly pointed her sword forward. “Are you done, Mister Jiang?”

Monty charged-- screamed too.

Predictable. Shay cut down with an overhead, right in front of his path.

But for some reason, Monty moved faster for just that moment. It was ridiculous-- he ended up a whole step to the side.

Shay tried to pull back-- to redirect her cut leftward.

It was too late though.

----------------------------------------

Shay stirred awake, blinking her eyes blearily.

She was on the ground. She was still in the martial hall.

She had her head... on someone’s lap.

But her stomach-- it hurt... a lot.

She closed her eyes, curling up to ease the pain... and her brain worked out the details of what happened.

She got hit. And... she must have gotten knocked out.

And that meant... she lost. She lost-- miserably and pathetically.

That sucked. so. much.

Annnnd all her sect siblings saw it. That was horrifically embarrassing...

But... at least Tyvan came to her aid. Keeping her eyes shut tight, she turned her body to face toward his stomach.

Ah. And since she lost, she could at least recover her spirits by directly inhaling his scent.

So... still pretending to be a little bit unconscious, she took a biiiiiig whiff of Tyvan’s leg.

Ehehe... Niiice~

Or... not... so nice?

Tyvan smelled... sweaty? That was so strange. But some people sweat more than others, even without exercising or anything.

So that was the smell of her crush’s sweat...

--but, then why...

--did he smell...

......old?

Shay sniffed again. Yep. Clearly old guy smell.

Wait-- whuhHh?

No.

No, no... no. No. NO!

Shay reached up... and found a pointy beard.

Oh.

Ohhhhh, no......

Shay held her breath. And with all her power, she rolled off of Grandpa Wei’s lap. She caught herself on her hands and knees, trying to not gag.

Oh, she was gagging.

“Xiaoxue?” Grandpa said, “Should I call the family doctor?”

Shay lifted her sleeve to her face, wiping away her tears, (and holding in her vomit.) “I’m-- I’m fine now, Grandpa!”

“Come rest,” he said, patting his lap.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Shay shook her head so hard she got a sense of vertigo. “Pass! Hard pass!”

She took a few breaths. She waited until the nausea went away (mostly.) And, then, she looked over to the mat. Bishop was there, eyes closed and smiling as he asked for volunteers. Most everyone was paying attention to him.

--but Tyvan...

He was with Monty, kneeling next to him. They were talking... and Rook was holding an icepack to Monty’s head.

That...

Shay wanted that.

They both got hurt...

--but why wasn’t Tyvan with her?

Why was he with him??

The words she heard before hit her again.

Potential.

Talented. And born with natural potential.

Shay blinked the tears out of her eyes.

Monty was everything she wasn’t.

----------------------------------------

The rest of Saturday sucked. They didn’t even go out to eat after. Tyvan said he had somewhere to go.

Oh, he did invite her to train with him, though! That was-- errrgh... if it was anything else, Shay would have loved to spend more time with Tyvan. But... naturally and obviously, if it was training, Monty would be there too.

Shay declined the offer.

And she felt terrible about it, too.

On Sunday, she made plans to go for a morning jog. She had to do at least that much to keep in shape.

There was a commotion in the courtyard, though, so she peeked out of her window blinds to look outside. A bunch of her coworkers were out in the courtyard doing warm-up exercises, arranged... almost in a circle.

Tyvan was in a slim, dark-green track suit. Wow. He still looked clean and professional, even working out-- especially compared to everyone else in just... old, ratty-looking clothes.

There were some people Shay didn’t recognize, but she also saw Raia and Bishop and... Heidi? Heidi was standing off to the side, though, doing her stretches away from everyone else. (She was the reason the group wasn’t formed up in a real circle.)

She wore colorful blue shorts and a black, sleeveless fitness top that showed off her arms and back. But since WHEN did that girl have muscles?????

Heidi? ReALLy??

Ugh. Monty was also there.

Shay could have been out there, too. She even got invited. She could have claimed a spot right by Tyvan’s side...

But...

No.

That wasn’t her place.

Pulling away from the window, Shay crawled back into bed...

----------------------------------------

Monday was a normal day.

Maybe one interesting thing happened? Shay learned that Monty hadn’t gone back to school for two-ish weeks. Aquila was hyping up the rumor train with conspiracy theories. Did Monty get kidnapped and impregnated by aliens? Or did he get caught inhaling a hundred drugs?

In reality, he was probably spending all his time with Tyvan.

If Shay could regress, (and if she could choose to when she regressed to,) she would have gone back to just after joining Elysium. Then, she could have asked Tyvan to train her personally! It would have been SOOO easy to get close to him if she did that.

Why didn’t she think that was a thing, back then?!

Of course, Tyvan worked out! Yeonha knew his work-out schedule by heart and went over to creep on Bishop all the time-- Bishop and Tyvan, together!

Then, if Shay knew Heidi was part of their training, too, she would have definitely joined. She loved Heidi.

But it was too late... Mister Jiang already had a monopoly on Tyvan’s time.

After school, Shay wanted to go for a quick jog... but she didn’t want to do it in her home neighborhood. So... she took the ⌈Sigilla⌋ to run near her dad’s apartment complex.

As she started running, she found herself naturally going faster.

--but that felt stupid, so she slowed back down.

What was the point of pushing herself? Monty had top-tier talent and daily training. She couldn’t compete with that.

She was running to maintain her fitness... and to distract herself.

But as Shay turned the street corner, she found a better source of free therapy!

She saw a pair of cop cars off in the distance. And she was pretty sure she recognized her dad’s silhouette.

Also, someone was running toward her?

Shay quickly pointed down the nearby alley. “Quick, go that way!”

The guy didn’t even respond-- which was a little rude. But he cut to the right and kept sprinting, full speed.

Shay glanced aside to reread the yellow sign on the wall: ‘No Thru Traffic. Dead End.’ It was amazing what a little bit of reading comprehension could do.

When the other LEO’s caught up, Shay waved them toward the runner like she was an air-traffic controller.

Dad came jogging up shortly after.

“Shay? What are you doing here?”

Shay gestured at herself, notably at her spiffy new tracksuit. “Don’t mind me, Dad. I’m just a superhero for fun.”

Dad looked down at her, confused. “Do you... live around here?”

“Officer Chu!” one of the LEO’s called-- “Little help here!”

“Y’want some help?” Shay smiled, “I know gong fu.”

“Yeah, so do I,” Dad said before rushing to join his people.

Shay jogged over to the end of the building, peeking out into the alley. Dad showed off his cool side, getting ahold of the runner’s clothes, manipulating their body weight, and planting them into the ground. He even handcuffed the perp like he’d been doing that for years-- which... he had been. None of that should have been surprising.

“We’ll take it from here, Detective,” one of the younger cops said. “Was that your daughter we passed by, just now? You gonna introduce me?”

“So that’s public knowledge, huh?” Dad said. “Don’t get any ideas, smart-ass.”

Shay squinted her eyes to see the guy he was talking to. He didn’t look like someone she wanted to know. So... if that was who Dad was talking about the other day--

Yeah, just no.

“Let it go, Pomplun,” Dad said. “I called this in, so I’ll be expected to write this up.”

So that other cop’s name was Pomplun. That didn’t sound nearly as cool as ‘Xue Valorum.’

Shay stepped out from her hiding spot and waved. “Dad, did you eat dinner yet?”

Her dad sighed a heavy sigh-- which was also pretty rude. He said something to Pomplun and the others she couldn’t hear, but then he started walking back toward her.

“Shay, didn’t I see you just last week?”

“Expect me every week,” she said. She was determined to check at least that often to make sure Dad’s apartment wouldn’t become a hazardous area. “Besides-- you only have four days of work. Why would I not?”

“Today is one of those work days,” Dad frowned.

Shay sighed and looked away, rubbing at her elbow. “I... can we talk for a bit?”

Dad glanced around before he allowed the hardened features of his face to loosen up. “Yeah, of course.”