Sacramento, California, 2046
The amber-colored blade winked out of existence as it was about to strike the edge of his shield.
Anticipating her favorite trick, he threw himself back and into a freezing wall of ice that hadn’t been there before.
When he regained focus from the jarring hit the amber-colored magic blade had returned existence a few inches from his nose.
“Dead,” Amber said.
“Dead,” Alin agreed.
“What was your mistake, Boy?”
“Falling back in a straight line.”
A few arguments had crossed his thoughts on instinct at first, but he knew how his trainers worked from many years’ experience.
You didn’t say there was going to be outside interference from a wizard, he thought.
Cammi waved from the sidelines.
The young woman had used magic to make the surface of her glasses extra reflective.
He squinted away from the glare.
Thankful that it helped mask where his eyes had gone at first.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
Tight robes sucked. No, they were great.
“Left or right would’ve been better,” he said.
“Which one?”
“Left, er, my left. Your right. I could’ve gone under your cut and stepped into your blind spot. Could’ve attacked your wrist or legs, probably inner thigh to cut the artery. A cut to your hamstring or the back of your knee is also acceptable.”
He was displeased to note that the red chalk on the edges of his practice sword remained nearly as pristine as when he had marked it, which was, oh, seven exchanges ago.
Seven failed exchanges.
“Reset. We go again.”
Amber’s magitech right arm whirred as she rotated it on her way back to her starting point.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
He managed to focus on the back of her steel helm.
Exchange nine lasted longer.
He managed to finally leave his mark on something.
Sure, it was on Amber’s conjured shield, but that was better than nothing.
Cammi’s second ice wall, this time, underneath his boots led him to another defeat.
Amber pulled him up like he weighed nothing.
“Water break. Don’t forget to stretch,” she grunted.
He walked off the practice field, passing many pairs of dueling swords.
Mages and other ranged-types prowled the sidelines, making life difficult for the students.
The Sword of Freedom believed that fights weren’t fair. Thus, she mirrored it with her training methods.
This first month of summer had sucked.
The last time he had spent this long in one stretch training under Hanna was five, almost six years ago.
From the age of seven to eleven he had trained five days a week, with his dad flying him to Sacramento and back.
That had changed when his parents had enrolled him into the education system.
Training decreased in frequency.
Maybe one week a month.
Summer featured a return to the old ways. His dad once again flying him north five days a week.
This time his dad was busy, so he stayed in Sacramento.
His mom and Aunt Rayna visited on the weekends.
He was ashamed to admit that he was actually home sick.
“You smell.”
Rino and Kare approached.
He looked them both in the eyes and maintained it.
Huh?
They were shorter than he remembered.
“Look at you! So tall! Not like your mom and dad at all!” Kare rubbed his sweaty mop of black hair. “Starting to look exactly like your dad though.”
“He’s not a puppy, Kare,” Rino sighed the sniffed. “I was right, you do smell.”
“Um…” the heat rose to his face. “I’ve been training all morning.”
“Not just that. I smell sadness,” she sniffed again. “Missing something or someones.”
“He’s just homesick, Rino. That’s normal and acceptable,” Kare said. “There, there,” she stroked his head exactly like a puppy.
“You guys just get back from a Quest?” he casually moved out of petting range.
“Fishmen swam up to Tahoe again,” Rino grunted.
“Boy, listen closely and remember this,” Kare said gravely, “just because something lives in the ocean and looks mostly like a fish… they don’t taste like sushi.”
“Uh… I will. So, um, you guys here to train?” a pit of apprehension had suddenly grown in his gut.
“Yup,” Rino said without expression.
“Yeah-huh,” Kare nodded excitedly.
“Cool. Cool. Uh, good seeing you guys again. I’ve got to hydrate and stretch,” he wandered off to the water station, grabbed a bottle and found a spot to stretch.
As the minutes ticked by there was a noticeable uptick in people entering the park.
Boys and girls, children of all ages.
Even Watch Commander Court appeared.
He glanced toward Rino and Kare.
The pit of apprehension had sprouted into a tree.
Could I, perhaps, slip away? he pondered options. Cramps? No, the athletic trainers and kinesiologists had Skills for that.
He gazed up into the sky in search of answers.
A black dot circled overhead.
One of their drakes or wyverns.
He glanced back at the two weredogs.
They had removed their shirts and sweatpants.
Yup, he turned away.
Sports bras and short shorts.
The super stretchy kind that they wore to preserved their modesty when they went from weredog to human. And since they were currently in human form, that meant they were going to transform.
Were they going to practice against each other?
Possibly.
Or, was this Hanna making up for lost time?
Most likely.
He knew what was up. He was smart. The old people kept things from him, but he could connect the dots.
He remembered the talks he’d had with his parents concerning the life of one that fought monsters.
More, ever since he had firmed his resolve to enter that life.
They did it, so he could do no less than give it his best attempt.
The fact that he had failed to gain powers or a class was the silent killer in the back of his mind that he tried to keep buried.
There was no way that he could accept the simple life of a doctor or teacher or trainer. He didn’t want to become an administrator supporting his dad’s efforts from behind the scenes.
“Boy!” Amber barked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he hustled over.
“It’s simulated human versus monster for the rest of the day.”
“Understood,” he managed to keep a stiff upper lip.
“Don’t be too scared,” Rino sauntered up to them. “Got plenty of healers waiting around.”
“Let’s not use that to take things for granted,” Amber said.
“Aww, we’ll be careful, Amber,” Kare bounced up to them.
“Just don’t break anything,” Amber sighed. “That could put him down for hours and we can’t waste time. We only have him for one more month.”
Alin’s mouth went dry despite having just re-hydrated.
On the other end of the practice field, Rino stood crouched low to the ground in her full weredog form.
Eight feet tall and a thousand pounds of lean, mean hunting and killing machine.
Her black and white fur was glossy in the sunlight.
That meant that Rino was eating properly, at least that’s how it worked for dogs.
The useless fact cluttered his thoughts when he was supposed to be emptying it of everything except for the fight in front of him as he had been taught by the best.
She grinned at him, revealing fangs and teeth longer than his fingers.
Her tale wagged, but he knew that didn’t always indicated happiness.
It could also be excitement at sinking her teeth into her prey.
Relax, she won’t hurt you… permanently. She changed your diapers once.
It was weird that more multiple members of the Watch from its earliest days had that same story.
Weirder that they’d always mention it whenever he came back. Loudly and without regard for who else was within ear shot.
He supposed the embarrassment was the point.
Annnndddd… I’m distracted.
Amber seemed to have the same thought.
“Focus on the monster in front of you!” she barked.
“Go get her, Boy!” Kare jumped up and down like a cheerleader.
Don’t look over. Don’t look over. Don’t look over.
“Ready?” Amber brought her whistle to her lips
He was not, in fact, ready.
It didn’t really matter either way.
Victory wasn’t possible.
The best he could do was not be embarrassed too badly in front of all the fit girls that had stopped their training to watch.
One had to be realistic about these things.
Without Skills he didn’t stand a chance. With Skills he’d stand a slightly less minuscule chance.
A hypothetical blade in the heart or brain wouldn’t kill a weredog unless one managed to destroy the organ in its entirety faster than its ability to heal.
Silver didn’t work.
On the plus side he didn’t have to worry about pulling his strikes.
He doubted she’d even feel his strongest blow.
There were a lot of cute girls, he realized.
He didn’t really know any of them.
Might recognize a face or a name in passing.
Most of his training over the last five years hadn’t been done in front of the whole group.
They had been mostly conducted in one on one sessions by Hanna or Amber and if both were on Quest, one of the other swordmasters.
Longsword, sword and shield, were just two of the weapon styles he had been trained in. Though the two were what he was best at.
He had also trained with spear, a handful of polearm-types, axe and shield, two-handed axe, various bludgeons, like hammers and maces, plus daggers, knives, sticks.
Part of him hoped for a weapons master class one day, if he couldn’t get powers like his dad.
“Get your head in the fight, Boy!” Amber barked.
How does she know?
The shrill whistle made him flinch.
Rino leapt.
Not at full strength and not directly at him because this was training.
He dived to one side and felt a strong pull on his leg.
Shit!
He was upside down in a flash, staring at her fur-covered mid-section.
He looked up or down from his perspective at her teeth-baring grin.
Slowly, deliberately, he ran his practice sword across her inner thigh.
“Um… I cut your femoral artery.”
She raised him higher, holding him muzzle to nose for a few seconds.
Her breath was hot, yet surprisingly pleasant smelling.
“I smell strawberry?”
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
She snorted.
“Wait! Don’t sha—”
He swallowed the rest of what he was going to say. He wasn’t about to bite his tongue.
Rino shook him like one wasn’t supposed to shake a baby.
Then she threw him.
He ditched his sword and shield.
Located the ground and managed to roll with the impact.
It still stole his breath.
Rino was on him, yanking the back of his collar and planting him into the grass.
She stepped lightly on his chest and ran the back of her claw across his throat.
“Dead,” she growled.
“But I got your femoral,” he whined.
“Already healed.”
Her guttural voice made him shrivel up a bit.
It wasn’t intentional on her part.
She had been as gentle as she could.
And, intellectually, he knew that she wouldn’t really hurt him.
It was just the instinctive fear within people of big things with sharp teeth and claws.
Amber blew the whistle.
“Next!”
Rino helped him up before she stalked to the sidelines.
Kare skipped to her starting spot while he retrieved his practice sword and shield.
“I need to chalk this.”
He took his time walking to the sideline.
Took even longer to mark the blunt edges.
Amber blew the whistle in his ear.
“Ouch!”
“You’re stalling. Get back in there!”
“Please take it easy on me,” Kare winked, then bowed solemnly before turning into a huge, golden-furred beast with a goofy grin.
He returned the bow and got into his stance.
The whistle blew.
Kare moved with exaggerated slowness.
A clawed hand lashed out, very slow for her, fast from his perspective.
He raised his shield, deflecting rather than blocking.
There was no way he could’ve blocked her without a broken shield and arm if this had been a real fight.
He cut at her left thigh.
She slapped his sword with a dainty flick of the wrist.
It was a light touch, but it almost disarmed him.
He recovered well-enough to dart in with a thrust cut to the inside of her leg.
She simply hopped back and slapped at his shield again.
“Kare!” Amber barked. “Stop babying him!”
He glanced at the sidelines.
Amber scowled.
The other trainers and students watched intently.
It wasn’t often that they got the opportunity to watch the weredogs in action.
He caught a knot of girls giggling and whispering.
Yup, he thought, that’s me. The baby.
The heat rushed to his face.
Kare lunged slowly.
A stop cut placed his blade in her path.
She reacted quickly, putting her golden-furred arm up.
It was like hitting a solid iron bar.
The vibrations rattled all the way up to his shoulder.
He moved too slow, didn’t pull his blade back quickly enough.
Kare grabbed it and ripped it from his grasp.
She did the same to his shield.
Then she was on him.
She mouthed him like a mother dog playing with her puppy.
Primal terror filled him as her hot breath and sharp teeth touched all his limbs, his chest and even his head.
Slobber liberally coated him as Kare tugged him across the grass this way and that.
The worst part was when she started throwing him dozens of feet into the air.
Up became down, down became up, sideways became the other sideways.
Kare chased him, leaping up to catch and cradle him as she landed.
Then she threw him to the other side of the practice area before leaping to catch him again.
I’m a frisbee and she’s playing catch.
Well… at least he was used to being off the ground and flipping in every direction.
He used to have his dad fly him around like that every chance he got when he was a kid.
His mom would also throw him dozens of feet before leaping up to catch him and absorb the landing.
In a way, this is nostalgic.
Of course all of that had ended when he had gotten older and too cool to have his parents toss him like a little, stupid baby.
Now the only sort of flying he got was when traveling with his dad or aunt and for training purposes.
He had actually started to enjoy the sensation of spinning through the air when the shrill cry of the whistle ended the fun.
“You’re just playing now, Kare!”
The golden-furred weredog threw him one last time, caught him and carried him like a baby to the sidelines, placing him in front of Amber as if to show off her puppy.
He stood, still a little dizzy and tried to maintain the tattered shreds of his dignity.
It seemed like everyone was giggling at him.
Fair.
If he had been on the other side, he’d laugh too.
One had to be realistic about these things.
He had zero chance against the weredogs.
“Alright. Break’s over. Get back to training!” Amber barked at everyone else. “Five minutes, Boy. I don’t want you puking.”
“I’m good,” he lied.
“You’re swaying like a baby tree in the wind,” she snorted.
“I can’t tell.”
“Five minutes. Then Rino again,” she regarded Kare through narrowed eyes. “You take this seriously or I’m kicking you out.”
“I’m serious,” Kare whined gutturally.
Amber chewed on her whistle for a long moment.
“He isn’t going to learn anything beyond being your chew toy,” she mused. “No transformation for the next round.”
Rino and Kare shed their full weredog forms.
The sight made him shiver.
It didn’t look or sound pleasant, regardless of quickly or smoothly they did it.
“We’ll see how it goes. If it needs to be harder then we’ll do half-transformation.”
“Whatever,” Rino shrugged.
His distraction at their attire only lasted as long as the first bone-jarring punch Rino put into his shield.
By the end of the training session he had marked both of them with a dozen red lines each.
He felt good about that.
He felt less good about the fact that each practice bout had ended with him ‘dead’.
Amber’s assessment was blunt and to the point.
“Technique was good until you got tired. Getting a cut or a thrust in doesn’t matter even if it’s a kill strike if you also get killed.”
“What if I save my teammate or achieve the Quest objective?” he couldn’t help himself.
“That isn’t the purpose of your training. We are teaching you so that you can defend yourself. Now, go, see the healers, then hit the showers and dinner. Rest and recovery for the rest of the night,” she dismissed him.
“Good fighting, Boy!” Kare bounced to his right.
“Not really,” Rino grunted on his left.
“C’mon, Rino. He was doing good moves and stuff.”
“Perfect technique doesn’t matter if a monster takes your head off right after you land the perfect cut or thrust.”
“Aww, c’mon, Rino. You’re making him sad,” Kare ruffled his hair despite his attempts to swat her hands away.
They pestered him all the way back to the Watch’s compound.
Well, Kare pestered him while Rino grunted stoically.
He tried to ask them about the fishmen, but they refused to give details.
His family had a house up by the lake.
It’d been a few years since the last time they had flown up there just to relax with a bit of swimming, fishing, killing monsters and mutated animals.
The latter was more what his dad and mom did.
He usually stayed inside with Watch protection.
He only knew of the fishmen from stories.
The Deep Azure.
Its cultists.
Straight up horror.
The lack of firsthand experience hadn’t diminished his nightmares about them.
In a way, leaving them to his imagination might’ve been worse.
“Healers first,” Rino grunted.
“Yup!” Kare beamed.
“Wait— what?”
To his dawning horror, it became clear that they were going to stick with him for a bit longer.
Turn in gear.
See the healers.
Hit the showers.
The two women stayed with him the whole way, like he was a baby sheep to be herded.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective the showers were gender separated.
Mercifully, the pair finally wandered off just before he had to go eat dinner.
His stomach grumbled at him as he made his way through the buffet stations.
The audible urgency in its cries had him ducking his head.
The food hall was still mostly empty since Amber had sent him away an hour early.
He stuck to the basics.
Grilled chicken, grilled vegetables and brown rice.
Two plates though since he had been working hard all summer and burning through a lot of calories on a daily basis.
The hall slowly filled as he ate and by the time he went up for a third plate it was filled the buzzing conversation of a hundred people.
“Hey, mind if we sit?”
A girl’s voice pulled his attention up from his plate.
His mouth was full so he nodded.
“What’s up?” the girl said.
He chewed quicker then swallowed too quickly.
The second girl giggled.
“Um… eating dinner?”
“You sure?” the second girl raised a brow.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t remember me do you?” the first girl smiled.
Shit! I don’t? Do I? he searched his memories while trying to maintain eye contact, but not too much so it wasn’t weird. Pretty face. Blond hair. Nope, doesn’t ring a bell, he glanced at the second girl. Also pretty. Brown hair. Also nope. Both were fit. Bare arms showed muscles, which was extra impressive cause they were teenage girls and it wasn’t him being sexist, but everyone knew that unless one took extra supplements teenage girls didn’t get that muscular. Not like boys. Not sexist, he nodded to himself.
“Sorry,” he shrugged.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Success! So far…
“I’m ‘Shannon’,” the first girl said, “and this is ‘Jules’,” she gestured toward the second girl as though presenting an award statue.
“Hi, nice to meet you. I’m ‘Alin’,” he stuck out his hand then realized he didn’t know how to shake a girl’s hand.
Firm? No. Slightly firm? Just don’t limp wrist it. Wait… just how are you supposed to do it?
Which turned out to be firm.
Jules actually ground down a bit.
“We know. You really don’t remember?” Shannon’s smile never left her face. “We were, like, in the same kids training class for, like, two years straight.”
“Oh,” he tried and failed to remember. “Yeah, sorry. I don’t remember you looking like that. I mean, I don’t recognize your faces.”
“That’s true. Lost the baby fat. Just like you,” Shannon nodded.
“You’re filling out pretty good,” Jules said.
“Um… thanks… uh… you guys too.”
For some reason they laughed at that.
“So… uh… how’s the… um… training going?”
“Same as usual. We’re more interested in yours,” Jules said.
“That’s the first time I remember them coming to train with the rest of us,” Shannon’s eyes lit up. “What was it like?”
“Uh… you guys saw, right?”
“Like my dog and his favorite stuffed bunny,” Jules said.
“I now know what that’s like. Being a stuffed bunny, that is.”
“Are you getting ready for a special Quest or something like that?” Shannon leaned forward.
Don’t look d— shit! I looked down.
“That pizza looks good. I totally missed it,” he pointed at her plate.
Good save?
“They’re always right at the start of the bread section,” Shannon turned to point, stretching her arm out.
“What’s your class? Level?” Jules jabbed a french fry in is face.
“Jules! That’s rude,” Shannon hissed.
“What? You want to know too.”
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, but I’m going to share. I have a few levels in student, like most of us, but what I really care about is my fighter at Level 11,” Shannon smiled. “They won’t let us specialize yet, but I’m planning on sword, with and without shield,” she looked at Jules expectantly.
“Hey, you can share if you want, but I’m not going to,” Jules said.
“Um… sorry, but I don’t have a class. I swear. It’s the truth.”
Shannon regarded him a moment before nodding, satisfied.
“Weird, but that’s your choice, I guess,” Jules shrugged.
“So, why’d you train with the weredogs, then?” Shannon said.
“I think it’s because they want to teach me what it’s really like going up against the really strong monsters,” he sighed.
“But your mom and dad are—”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’d rather I not follow in their footsteps.”
“Really?” Jules frowned. “But they aren’t gonna be around forever. The next generation’s got to step up.”
He didn’t mention that from the looks of it his mom and dad were going to be around for who knew how many generations.
“The only thing I can do is keep trying to get better,” he shrugged.
“That’s true,” Shannon elbowed Jules, “right?”
“Yeah, obviously,” Jules elbowed her back.
“Ow, why’d you elbow me?”
“You did it first!”
“Yeah, but yours hurt!”
“Whatever,” Jules rolled her eyes. “So, what was it like getting tossed around?”
“Scary at first, but then I kinda got used to it. Reminded me of being on a roller coaster.”
“Oh yeah, I heard you guys had those in SoCal,” Jules nodded. “The only thing we have here is the water park.”
“I’d love to ride a roller coaster. My parents told me stories about them. They have pictures and video from when they were younger. It looks super fun!” Shannon said.
“You guys should try it out if you ever come down.”
“Do you guys keep them open all year? The water park’s only open for people during the summer. The rest of the year it’s an encounter challenge.”
“Nah. We only clear them of monsters for maybe ten days total, but we’ve got like three, so, I guess that’s more like thirty days total. It’s spread out and we avoid rainy days. Otherwise, it’s just like you guys. They’re encounter challenges the rest of the time.”
“We’re going this Saturday with a bunch of friends. Boys and girls,” Shannon said. “You should come.”
“Um… thanks, but I have training.”
“Really?” Shannon pouted.
“Yeah. I’m only here for, like, another month, so they want to get in as much work as they can, I guess,” he shrugged.
“No breaks?” Jules snorted.
“Just for recovery stuff. Stretching, ice, food, sleep. You know how it is.”
“Not even for the weekend,” Shannon said.
“Saturday and Sunday are lighter on the physical stuff, but I get more classroom stuff. Strategy, tactics, history stuff.”
“Yeah, we do that too, but not during the summer. Unless you really want to, but we get plenty of that during the year,” Jules said.
Alin’s days were full and he was sure that asking for some time off to hang out with girls wouldn’t fly.
Nope.
His schedule was set and tightly adhered to.
Waking up was followed by breakfast.
Then came weightlifting for an hour and a half.
Recovery was next. Trainers’ Skills mimicked the effects of a full night’s sleep in about half an hour. It wasn’t as good as the natural thing, but it was good enough. Their Skills couldn’t hold of entropy forever. At least the ones they had. Who knew what crazy Skills existed past the Level 50 threshold.
Cardio followed with an hour of sprints, interspersed between circuits of the obstacle course.
They called it the ‘maw’ for the way it chewed people up and swallowed them.
Running, jumping, climbing.
It was a full body workout that built fast-twitch athleticism and muscle endurance.
Recovery again.
Then training with one’s weapon of choice. For beginners this meant practicing the techniques without an opponent or on a stationary dummy. It depended on one’s proficiency.
For Alin it meant sparring with a live opponent.
He was technically better than some of the trainers, but lacked their levels and Skills.
This thought appeared to cross Jules’ mind.
“I saw you sparring with Amber and other teachers. How’d you keep up without a class?”
“One, they weren’t going all out.”
“I don’t know, it sorta looked like it sometimes. I saw them using Skills,” Shannon said.
“Yeah, sometimes, but not usually and they didn’t use strong ones or use them that seriously.”
“And what’s two?” Jules said.
“I… forgot.”
“So, you looked pretty good out there, minus the catch session,” Jules said.
“Um… what did they say…” he didn’t want to brag. He kind of wanted to brag. “Yeah, the trainers say that I’d win most of the time against anyone with a class up to about Level 10. That’s with gear being equalized. I start falling off after that. Skills start making up the technique gap in the teens and by Level 20 the ratio flips. Over 20 and I’d need to get really lucky and the other guy unlucky for me to win a fight. Obviously, real fights don’t usually break down into an equal one versus one.”
The girls nodded.
“That’s why we train in teams,” Shannon said.
They talked about normal stuff for the rest of dinner.
So, basically about fighting, classes and monsters.
Alin would’ve liked to talk to people his age more over the summer, but his damned schedule got in the way.
Wake. Train. Sleep.
The days blurred into weeks with only a few conversations with people his age. Usually at the mess hall.
He wouldn’t say that he had made new friends.
More like acquaintances.
And ‘new’ wasn’t technically correct.
It turned out that he had trained with most of them years ago.
Summer and his time in NorCal ended when his dad arrived with a few huge surprises.