That morning, Axel woke before either Aria or Lyra and began to extract himself from the bed when he noticed fading bruises around Aria’s midsection. With how quickly the body healed with the blessing, she must have been very injured for the bruising to last this long. Axel was more than a little upset; he had hurt someone he loved again with his strength, and Aria hadn’t informed him of the injury. Axel ran his mind through the aftermath of the fight. Aria had been slower but still acted as he expected, with her tickling Lyra as a prime example.

Axel decided to talk to Aria about this, feeling that she should have told him he had hurt her. To try and make up for it a bit, Axel gathered breakfast for both Aria and Lyra, who were still in bed. When he arrived back in the room, he found them both awake. Aria was quickly pulling her shirt down, and Lyra was removing her hand from Aria’s side. Axel brought the tray with all the food and placed it on the chairless desk in the room, looking Aria in the eye.

“I wish you would have told me I hurt you during the escape,” Axel stated.

“Aria knew you did not do it on purpose and it was to get us all away safely,” Aria replied, looking away. “Aria didn’t want you to worry.”

“That’s fine, just let me know when you are hurt, as that could affect everyone. Lyra or I might expect something from you that you can’t do,” Axel said, kissing her on the head. “Now eat up, you two, and be ready for a long day. I have a plan for what to do.”

“Hey, why didn’t you say anything about me? I might have been injured too,” Lyra asked.

“Because you are a trained healer and we grew up together. You would have told me if you were hurt,” Axel replied, pointing at the note he wrote last night next to the food.

Axel went to take a bath to clean up while Aria and Lyra ate and hopefully figured out what they might have messed up in the room last night. When Axel returned to the room, the plate and note were gone, and both girls were likely cleaning as well. Axel used this time to pack his things that had been scattered around the room over the time he had been in the city. By the time he had finished packing Aria’s bag, both Aria and Lyra were in the room with their bags.

Tossing Aria her bag, Axel led everyone out and headed to the innkeeper, telling him they were checking out. Even though they had another two weeks they could stay before having to pay due to Axel just taking his trial, he felt that they needed to move as they could have been followed there. Axel was also unsure if anyone had the power to eavesdrop, and that was what his note warned Aria and Lyra about, as they might have let something slip in their time of perceived safety.

Leaving into the warming spring morning, Axel could see deep and heavy clouds in the sky, signaling heavy rain. Axel hurried to the launch and hired a platform for the Vanguard tower. Lyra had an appointment with Rex this morning, and Axel wanted to see if the veteran would have any ideas about what to do in this situation, as Axel was getting way out of his depth. Axel’s next bet was Sapphire, but he did not want to bring trouble to her door with kids around or bounty hunters anywhere near those kids.

The platform ride was swift, but the rain started to pour down, hitting the protection field more heavily and intensely as time went by. As the party arrived at the tower, Axel could barely see it through the heavy rain. The lobby floor was dry as the water-soaked trio entered, only for a staff member sitting near the door to wave a hand and pull all the water off their bodies and the floor under them.

Axel thanked the man and then followed Lyra to her training room that was reserved for her and Rex. Waiting in the room was Rex, slowly going through sword forms while waiting for Lyra. He turned and was about to address her when he noticed the group all enter.

“Well, this is interesting,” Rex said, flaring his wings a bit to loosen them. “I was not expecting Aria and Axel to come, in full armor with weapons to boot.”

“There has been an issue that reared its ugly head,” Lyra said to Rex’s raised eyebrow.

“We were ambushed by bounty hunters on the way back to the Seekers Inn yesterday, and while we got away, the hunters likely underestimated us,” Axel continued.

“Details,” was Rex’s only reply. Axel explained what happened yesterday along with his worry that they were spied on in their room at the inn. Rex stayed silent for about ten minutes and finally said, “While it is not out of the realm of possibility to be spied on at a Seeker Inn, it is unlikely as the rooms have gems placed for privacy, and you would need to be screaming very loud for anyone in the next room to just barely hear.”

Aria began to blush very brightly as Lyra looked at her, but neither said anything as it was not the time. Axel could only shake his head a bit and ignore the heat he was feeling on the back of his neck as well.

Rex also decided to let it go and continued, “Here’s the thing, you are not ready for the heat you are drawing. Axel, you have your first power and a slightly stronger core from what I guess is your proto core giving you a boost. Aria has stabilized her core and is ready for her next, and Lyra needs at minimum another few days of training.”

“You all are also very differently trained and need time to mesh together as a team to even have a shot at fighting off a group of mid to end Novice bounty hunters,” Rex continued, not reacting to the wince that all three made to the comment.

“This is not something I normally do, but Aria is like a niece to me, and I have grown to like Lyra in our training. Stay here for your original two weeks and train with me. I will get you the higher cores you need to get your second ability and help you get out of the city unnoticed,” Rex offered.

All three of them just stared at the man in shock. Axel was unsure how long it took before one of them spoke and it was Aria who shook off the shock first and said “Like a niece?”

“Aria I watched you grow from the scared little girl whose world collapsed on her when her parents died, to the girl unwanted by other families as they were scared to take her, to the young woman who put her all into training and heart into helping little ones get past their grief and now I see the woman in front of me who survived in a jungle being fair better skilled with aero then someone who had been training for a month,” Rex said calmly and looked in her eyes.

“Aria you may not know but your mother was a friend and fellow Flame Seeker. I was there when you were born and your mother took her position in the Guardians as a Stormlord. I was not around as you were growing up before your loss as the rest of our team did not want to stop.” Rex continued sounding tired and older than he looked.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“The thing I regret most was being halfway across the continent when your mother and father needed me most. By the time my team arrived, they had been dead for weeks.” A single tear rolled down the right side of Rex’s cheek. “The team and I then spent years hunting the bastard that did the killing but by the time we had found him, you were grown and I did not want to interfere with your life.”

“Why didn’t you say anything though?” Aria asked in a choked voice

“It was too painful but I can see now that if I did not say anything you would not have taken this gift as you have always been someone who wanted to gain through your own power, or do I have to mention all the help that Sapphire has offered and you turned down?” Rex thumbed the tear away and waited for Aria to decide.

Aria stood there, thinking about everything while a trickle of tears still shined on her cheek. Axel moved forward to offer any comfort he could with his presence but waited for her to decide. As much as he wanted to take this opportunity, it did not feel right to say anything at this moment. After a few more moments, Aria took a deep, steadying breath before replying to Rex.

“Alright, Aria will take your help but on two conditions.” Aria waited for Rex to nod his understanding. “First, we want your best training, and we have another member who could use this training.”

“I can agree to that,” Rex approved.

“Second, Aria gets to call you Uncle from now on,” Aria said with a smile on her face.

“Fine,” Rex said in a slightly aggrieved tone that Axel couldn’t tell was serious or annoyed.

“Let’s get this started. Axel, if you could send a message to your merchant friend and have the time reset back two weeks? Lyra, begin warmups and light workouts. Aria, contact your missing member to inform them of everything and give them the option to back out or get training with your group.” Rex reverted to his more stony exterior and began to give orders.

“I will need a couple of hours to set up lodging here, work on a training plan, and use stored credits with the Vanguard to get you the cores you need,” Rex continued. “A week and a half of intense training, your group taking your second trial, and about another week to get you used to your power should work.”

“This is a little outside of your original time frame, but this is the best I can do. After that, you should hunt and get used to combat outside of training to let it all sink in,” Rex finished.

“I think that can work. Thank you for all this help, Rex,” Axel said, then pulled out stationery and a pen from his bag to write what was happening in general terms to Jareth. Axel also told Jareth that they were staying elsewhere but he could contact him by leaving a message at the Vanguard tower.

Rex said nothing to the thanks and left right after giving his instructions. Aria left shortly after, while Axel followed and paid a silver to get the message sent to Jareth. This was way overpaying for this service, but Axel felt that it would be more likely to make the trip safely. After that, Axel returned to the training room and also began to go through warmups.

Aria arrived with Sky close to an hour later, Sky moving hesitantly into the room, looking around as if expecting to get attacked.

‘I heard from Aria what happened after our meeting,’ Sky’s thoughts entered everyone’s mind. ‘If you will have me, I would like to stick with you all.’

“We would be happy to have you in our group, Sky,” Lyra said first.

“Of course, we would be glad to have you as a member of our group,” Axel followed.

“Aria told you that it would be okay,” Aria patted Sky’s leg.

Sky skittered side to side happily, her thorax moving up and down. Sky then spoke to everyone’s mind again, ‘I wish to train with you, but I also need to keep working on my blacksmithing and rune craft lessons during this time.’

“I think we can work something out for you,” Axel consoled her.

This was the time that Rex entered, bringing with him a box under his right arm. He looked at everyone with a sweeping gaze before saying, “I see everyone is here. Good!”

“Sky, I see you found people to travel with,” Rex told Sky as he continued into the room and set the box down. “Now here is the thing. You all will train together for at least eight hours. Sky, you will have any time after that to work on your crafting skills while I will do individual work with the rest of the group.”

“Axel, since you picked up Fixed Point Regeneration, please turn it off while training so you get the most out of this,” Rex said while looking at Axel but did not wait for his acknowledgment. “You all will have a barracks room shared between all of you.”

Rex then opened the box and threw each person a core. After everyone swallowed one, he handed them all the meat from the box to help build their bodies up. After a few minutes for the food to settle, Rex began his training for them.

It started with a cardio obstacle course on the thirtieth floor. This would not have been the worst until Rex pressed a large gem that increased the gravity by what felt like two to three times. Axel could take it, but he could see Aria and Lyra starting to sweat heavily, though he could not tell how this was affecting Sky. After the first hour, Rex let them drink water, then had them eat another round of meat and sent them out again under what felt like four times gravity.

When this training was over, everyone was shaking from the effort, though all they received was a slight frown from Rex as he again let them drink and led them to another floor that was a large open room labeled "combat simulator." Rex explained to the group, mostly Axel as he skipped some of the standard training to get his powers, that this used light and mass powers to create people, beasts, and crimson entities to fight.

It was not used a lot outside of training to get used to powers as many did not see such soft training to be of much use. Rex disagreed and set the room to Novice mid-level and threw the group in with the statement that they would think the cardio was easy if any of them were simulated killed in this training. Axel had little time to think as a wave of beasts made of yellow light attacked them.

Axel would have loved to say that they did valiantly, but it took the simulation about five minutes to kill them. Axel tried to lead as a vanguard to hold the wave off, but Sky panicked as one of the beasts flanked the group, causing Axel to get hit by a wild lump of metal. This caused a domino effect that pulled Lyra out of position, allowing a different pair of beasts to attack Aria while she was providing ranged support for Axel.

The prize for this failure was a team “spar” with Rex. Axel was allowed to turn his regeneration back on, but that just meant that he was beaten longer than everyone else. In the end, they were at the four-hour mark and fed another core, which felt like a waste to Axel, while Lyra used her gift to help everyone in the group better optimize their growth. After eating yet more meat, everyone was led back to the combat room, and this time they needed to fight a group of people.

Axel’s group lasted a lot longer than last time, but they were still defeated in about ten minutes as two of the people locked Axel down with a combination of powers. Rex called out that Axel was immobile for twenty seconds when they hit, causing a scramble of the others to both protect him and keep themselves alive. After this defeat, they were all led again to the obstacle training course, though the gravity seemed to be set to the same level, but this time they had to avoid bolts that shot from random locations in the walls that hurt and stung when hit.

This cycle repeated with everyone eating and drinking, going back to the simulator, lasting a little longer or sometimes shorter, then a spar with Rex constantly attacking everyone’s weak spots, and lastly, after nearly eight hours, cool-down exercises.

“Well, that was good for an easy day,” Rex said to the group who were lying on the ground completely spent. “Sky, you can go back to your training. Be here tomorrow morning at seven a.m.”

“The rest of you can have the night off after practicing your weapon forms a hundred times.” Rex looked down at everyone before adding, “I now have a good baseline for you all and can figure out a more effective training plan. Be ready for the real training to begin tomorrow.”