Max walked into Amy's apartment with a grin. She gave him a hug and a quick kiss. "Any problems on the way over?" she asked.

"No, not at all." Max actually enjoyed the walk from the Summoner Academy to Amy's apartment. Both ways, he got an up-close view of the stable portal system that the Quartet workers used to get around. Every single time he saw the system, he came closer to some sort of new understanding of portals. So far, it was still eluding him, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

Discovering the portal system through Amy had been super helpful for Max. Now it was incredibly easy to get around the central area without attracting attention. He could portal to the Quartet-born area from one of the shops near the gate to the Summoner Academy, head to the portal exchange room, and head directly to any shop he wanted to check out. He’d long since figured out how to use the switch podium dials.

Now his traveling did not even really present any opportunity for an ambush. Prince Regal's friends must have been downright perturbed about it. Of course, none of his nanny golems could follow him anymore, but that really wasn’t much of a problem. The fact none of the headmasters had contacted him about it meant they must feel the same way.

However, it turned out that in order to link a portal to another specific portal in the Quartet, there was a fairly complex code for each other portal. These codes were necessary to use as the switch podiums. Luckily for Max, he had Lavinia writing in his head without a physical brain to baby along, and not much else to do. She had proven to be absolutely fantastic at memorization. Amy had given Max a handy booklet to borrow that listed all of the portal addresses for most portals in the Quartet. Lavinia had them all memorized. Max suspected that the power he’d gotten from contracting with Tom had also improved all of his spirits’ intellectual ability as well, not just Max.

Amy sat down next to him on the couch and leaned against him. "You have that look in your eye again," she said.

"I do?"

"Yep, I know you're thinking about something else."

"What can I say," said Max, "I'm a deep thinker."

Amy crooked a smile and got up. "I'm getting something to drink. Do you want anything?"

"Just water is fine. Thank you."

As Amy went behind the couch to her little kitchen, Max thought about how similar her quarters in the Quartet was to his apartment back on Earth. In fact, some of the resemblances were uncanny–even the floor layouts were similar. Then again, floor layouts for apartments were pretty similar on Earth too. He briefly wondered if there were only so many ways that bipeds could link rectangular rooms together in the most space-efficient way possible, or if maybe there was like…a grandfather apartment plan out there in the universe that everybody was copying off of.

He was still thinking about that when Amy came back with a glass of water. Max took a sip and put the glass on a wooden coaster. Opposite from where he sat against the wall was what looked a bit like an entertainment center on Earth. However, this one, instead of a television, held a large glass ball–a viewing ball. Max had seen them used before and thought it shared similarities to viewing crystals on Albion, but it was definitely cruder.

In the Quartet-born area, the viewing balls were not accessible all the time. There were very specific times of the week that Quartet-born citizens could view any programming. The exception was any potential emergency announcement. Max privately suspected that the main purpose of the balls was actually for emergency announcements and communication from leadership with the rest of the Quartet's workers. The handful of entertainment was probably just so people valued the balls and didn’t cover them up or something. That was kind of a depressing thought.

"So what have you been up to?" asked Amy.

“Well…” Max started. Then the two of them had a nice light chat. He kept most of the details light, but did tell her about a number of things he did on a day to day basis. They hadn't seen each other for a few days.

Then Amy told Max what had been going on at her job. Some of it she'd already messaged him about on her tablet, but Max listened to it all over again just the same. Amy was the type of person who liked to talk through her problems. That included discussing her wins and her bad days too. It was all how she processed information. Then the discussion came back to what Max was doing. Amy was especially curious about what he was planning for the next semester.

But when he was talking about martial arts practice, she suddenly froze and got a strange expression on her face. "What is it?" asked Max.

"What did you just say again?"

"I was saying that all of us are working harder because we have the Quartet competition qualifiers at the end of the semester. It's coming up, and I need to compete." Max hadn't told her about his deal with the headmasters or anything sensitive like that. It was as much to protect her as it was because they had a relatively new relationship, and Max didn't want to spill his guts unless he knew they were both in this relationship or the long haul.

It was something he struggled with a bit. Max wasn’t exactly loose with secrets, but so many of his secrets were so important to every decision he made in the Quartet, he’d had a hard time keeping Amy in the dark. His relationship with Amy was new, but it had been pretty good so far, and he did like her. So, a nebulous desire to spirit her away from her wage-slave existence in the Quartet was definitely one of his motivators for all of his study on portals and such.

“Oh. Amy looked down at her hands.

Unfortunately, the strange vibe didn't go away. The chill in the air seemed to get deeper as Amy scooched a couple of inches away from Max before turning to face him more fully on the couch.

“So I take it something is bothering you?”

‘Yes,” she said.

Max blinked. "I thought I had mentioned the competition stuff. If not, I apologize. To be honest, working towards some of this stuff stresses me out a little bit, so I don't talk about it very much unless I have to. But you know my reputation in this Quartet. You didn't think that I would be shanghaied into participating?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Amy frowned. "I don't know what 'shanghaied' means, but no, I didn't think that you would be participating. If anything, I thought that your reputation would mean you were less likely to participate since you killed the Mystic Spirit Path students and there's so much bad blood between you and other students. The golems following you around, the fact you never talked about it, I just…assumed. I feel foolish now."

"Well, it’s not exactly entirely my choice," muttered Max.

"You don't want to do it?"

"Of course I don't want to do it," said Max. That was mostly true. Most of him didn't want to participate, but there was a small, curious part of him that hungered to measure himself against the other warriors of this Quartet. "It's something I can't get out of, though. I've had too many people helping me, and they're calling in the favor."

"You should still refuse," said Amy flatly.

"Wait, what? Are you serious right now?"

"Yes," she nodded her head in a very no-nonsense way. "I'm completely serious."

"Why?" asked Max. He was genuinely confused about why this conversation felt like it was falling into a fight. “If I die, I'm just going to come to life again. In fact, in the Quartet competition, we use special stages, so if we die, we come to life again minutes later."

"I know," said Amy, with some exasperation leaking into her voice. "I've seen years of Quartet competitions on the viewer." She pointed at the crystal ball in the cabinet across from the couch.

"Okay, then you should know all about it," said Max.

"Yes, I do. But I also know that most students who disappear from the Quartet do so around the time frame of the end of the year competition. Usually afterwards."

"Why?" asked Max.

"I don't know. I can speculate, probably the same reasons you can. Maybe after the competition, they get inspired by other fighters, or maybe they get discouraged, or maybe they were a fighter and feel like they accomplished what they wanted to accomplish. There are many reasons they could leave. Unless a student thinks to tell everyone why, nobody gets notice of who goes back to to their own world early. But all I can say for sure is that those two times of the year, the end of semester competitions and end of year competitions are when most people leave this Quartet other than those who just time out after the end of their allocated years. It's always the same. And there seems to be a higher percentage of people that leave early who participate in the competitions, too."

"Really?" asked Max.

"I swear on my parents' memory," said Amy. She held her hand over her heart.

What the hell is going on right now? Max wondered. He said, "I think I understand your fears. It’s not in my plans to vanish after any of these competitions, so I’m not really on the same page…” He paused. “Something is bothering me, here. I know you want me not to compete. Just to be clear right now, are you asking me or are you telling me?"

"Asking or telling what?" asked Amy.

"Asking or telling me not to participate in the Quartet competition."

Amy frowned and slowly said, "This sounds bad, even to me, but I'm going to be honest. I'm telling you. I can't handle it if you participate. It's too much. I've already lost my parents. I just started this thing with you. If you participate in the qualifiers, that means I'll have to wait an entire semester to see if you disappear, if you don't already."

"Wow," muttered Max. "I didn't think we'd been together long enough to be having ultimatums."

Amy smiled in apology. "I know it's probably not the best thing for me to do, but I can't help how my heart feels. It’s horrible right now, just hearing about you going to fight."

The two of them lapsed into an awkward silence. Way to kill the mood, Max, he thought to himself. But he knew this wasn’t his fault. The subject had to come up sooner or later, and he wasn’t even entirely surprised that Amy had a line in the sand like this. People she’d cared about had been leaving her over her entire life.

“So just to be absolutely clear, you cannot handle if I fight in the Quartet competitions at all. Just thinking about the possibility upsets you. It’s a deal breaker.”

She nodded jerkily without looking up. A single tear ran down her cheek.

This sucks, thought Max. She knows that she put me in this position, but at the same time, I can tell she really feels strongly about this.

Max sighed and stood. He turned to face his new girlfriend. They'd only made the relationship official-official two weeks ago. This sucks, he thought again. He reached down and gently took her hands. She didn't look up to meet his eyes, and another tear was rolling down her cheek now.

He said, "I'm sorry, but this is unavoidable for me now. Deals have been made and some of this is just…greater than myself. I need to do what I need to do. However, I completely understand your stance on this and why. Even though the ultimatum isn't good, I’m not going to hate you for it. I’m glad you told me clearly how you feel. And I respect your need to protect yourself, especially since we haven't been seeing each other for very long. You may be convinced that I may disappear…but you're not going anywhere.”

Max squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his emotions to settle. He hadn’t bee expecting this at all. Part of him had been wondering if he’d actually get to have a personal life again. It was illogical, but he also felt like he might have let Amy down, despite the fact he had no way to know about any of this. But if he somehow had, he would have made the same choices. It just meant he wouldn’t have gotten involved with Amy.

This sucks.

Now that he’d begun dating her, he knew what a wonderful, bright, strong, caring person she was, though. That knowledge existed, and Max couldn’t just walk away anymore, at least not without leaving a chance for reconciliation. He cleared his throat, struggling to keep his tone and voice steady. “How about this? We'll take a break. We will officially not be seeing each other, so you don't need to worry about me. And if at the end of all this I'm still around, maybe we can pick up where we left off?"

"I would like that," she mumbled. It was obvious she was about to start crying.

Max wasn't feeling really great himself. He couldn’t draw this out or it’d just make the entire situation worse. He pressed his lips together, sucked in air through his teeth and said, "So I guess that’s it, then. I'll see you around, Amy. If you need anything or just want to talk, I'm just a tablet message away. You’ll always have my help if you ned it.” Then he bent down and gave her a quick hug. He'd half expected her to give him a crushing embrace, but instead, she was like a wet noodle. She leaned against him, though.

He stood. "I'll let myself out then," said Max.

She nodded and said, "I know that I did this..."

Max cut her off. "No, this is nobody's fault. Nobody did anything wrong. We didn’t hide things from each other. You made a decision, but I made a decision too."

She nodded again and a sob escaped before she managed, "Thank you for being so nice to me. Not just right now, but you know, everything."

"You're a great person and I enjoy your company. How could I be anything but nice?" His eyes grew a little bit misty, so he awkwardly turned and said, "I'll, uh, see myself out. Sorry for, you know."

"Yes," she said.

Max left the apartment and almost immediately after he closed the door, he could hear Amy sobbing inside. Well, that was a quick relationship, he thought. If it's meant to be any further, it'll be, I guess.

He walked back to the portals, holding in his sadness like balancing an overflowing cup. He still had to stop a couple of times to run his wrist over his rapidly misting eyes. By the time he got to the portals, he wasn't in the mood to inspect them. But he thought of the inspection as part of his job now, so he forced himself to try burning every aspect of the devices into his memory. He wasn't sure how useful going through the motions were, though. In the back of his mind, he kept hearing a replaying memory of the sound of Amy sobbing.