Levi stood in the awkwardness of the silent room. He hated the silence, it was deafening. In reality it was only silent for a couple of seconds, but there was a sharpness to all the auras in the room. Levi could tell that they were the weakest ranks in the room. He had gotten lucky getting those star tokens early. Otherwise, he would have been the weakest by a long shot. Levi watched as the families interacted with each other once the silence ended.

There was one thing Levi liked to do, it was people-watching. Of course, he would be listening to music to hide the awkwardness of silence. He watched as the Vendulars expressed their emotions much more. They greeted each other with big smiles, big hugs, and a few tears. Piper’s mom was so excited that her little girl was so big and strong now. The Onxys on the other hand were more cordial. Bows, head nods, and gentle hugs were exchanged. Even when Anna interacted with the Vendulars, that was much more emotional. They swept her up in big hugs.

Piper’s older brother was present. He was a tall man who looked like Piper, but he was much more muscular, but in a lean way—more like a marathon runner than a professional football player. He gave Levi an assessing look but said nothing to him. The way he looked at Levi up and down, it pissed Levi off. He knew he was measuring Levi for one of two reasons. First, to see if this guy would be worthy of dating his precious little sister or two, could he take him in a fight? Piper saw what he had done and scolded him quietly.

Piper’s mom was every bit as beautiful as Piper was. Her hair was long and curlier. She had that magical beauty perfection in her face. The one that was impossible to tell her age. Levi dared not ask.

Anna’s two siblings were also present. Her older sister and younger sister were much more like Anna and her mother in demeanor. They were stoic and proper, too proper that Levi could have sworn they were straight out of a Korean drama with the strict mom, who was demanding and never satisfied.

“Hello,” Anna’s mom approached Levi. “I am Queen Alessia, welcome to our home. My husband has not been able to stop speaking about you. I must confess, this is a big deal.”

“Thank you,” Levi gave a respectful bow. “You have a lovely home.” Anna had grilled Levi the proper way to greet their parents. Piper’s parents would be more casual and would likely prefer to be called uncle and aunty, but Piper instructed Levi to allow them to offer that. Otherwise, they were to be called Lady and Sir.

“These are my daughters; the eldest is Rayvin, the youngest is Karin.” Alessia introduced.

“Lady Rayvin, Lady Karin,” Levi said respectfully with a bow. Karin was a magic user, but she only had 1-star, this surprised Levi. He thought he would be the lowest star ranking of the adventurers. Levi didn’t press with the auras, but his new aura perception could see people’s auras and could tell the Vendulars were masterful at their control. It was beautiful to see how their auras swirled around their bodies smoothly without a hitch. This made sense since they were all assassins.

“Howzit!” Piper’s mom said, approaching Levi; she wrapped him in a hug. “I am Aunty Maddi, Piper’s mom.”

“Lovely to meet you Aunty,” he said giving her a hug.

“Son,” Piper’s dad said. “I’m Duke Trey.” Leandro stared with intensity as Trey called Levi son. Levi was not afraid to let the king know that was not something to call him.

“With all due respect sir,” Levi said. “I’m not your son.” Levi held out a hand to shake Trey simply looked at it, then turned away. Levi shook his own hand and nodded his head. This gained a smile from Maddi. She knew her husband was protective of his little girl but sometimes he went too far.

“I must say, Levi,” Aunty Maddi said. “Your aura control matches our families.” She linked her arm in his and escorted him to the table, whispering to him. “Pay no mind to my husband and my son; they are quite protective of their little Piper. We can’t read anything on your aura, but hers lights up every time she looks at you. It’s quite cute.”

Levi chuckled, “I figured I would have been challenged before the night was done.”

“Then you, sir, are a smart man,” she winked before getting back to her seat.

“Sir,” Levi said to Leandro before taking a seat.

“Call me uncle, Levi!” Leandro said. This got a look from everyone. They all slowly turned their heads to look at the king who was being much more casual than anyone had expected. “Don’t mind them,” he said. “Grab some food and eat!”

“What kind of creature is that?” the young Karin asked.

“She’s a mimic, this is Anza,” Levi said.

“You have familiars?” Piper’s brother asked. Piper took a seat next to Levi.

“I’m Levi,” Levi said. “What’s your name?” not answering his question.

“My name does not concern you, are you not going to answer my question?” he replied.

“Ohhh kay, Nice to meet you,” Levi said with a wry smile. “I have three, for now.”

“THREE?!” Multiple people said at once.

“Yes,” Levi said. “I am Familiar Summoner, that was my class evolution.”

“Leandro,” Trey said. “How long has it been since we have seen a summoner in this kingdom?”

“I was just as surprised when he walked in with our daughters. It’s been many years. You see,” Leandro said to Levi. “Ranking up as a summoner is a tough task. After people found out that it was so hard they stopped choosing it. Yet, you have. Why?”

“A wise friend once told me why doesn’t matter,” Levi said. “What matters is what and how. What am I going to do with my powers and how am I going to rank up? These are the better questions, and the answer is simple: I’m going to work my but off and make friends along the way.”

“That’s a load of crap,” Piper’s brother snapped. “Who are you and what are you doing with my sister.”

“I’m Levi Winters and she’s my friend I made in Arcross. We study together, although we are in different guilds. She teaches me to fight with weapons, I teach her ritual magic.” Levi’s response was measured and calm. He understood well enough that her brother was purposefully trying to provoke Levi.

“Mom, dad,” Piper said, hushing her brother. “I got Arcane Trickster as my class evolution. I’m not an assassin, per se.”

“An Arcane Trickster,” her dad mumbled. “You can spell cast?”

“That’s wonderful honey,” Maddi said.

“How did you do that? That’s impressive!” Trey exclaimed.

“Levi,” Piper said. “He’s being humble; I think he will be able to single-handedly win the battle of the guilds at the end of the year.”

“She’s right,” Anna spoke up for the first time. “Levi’s spell casting, ritual magic, and well familiars are incredible.”

“Is that so?” Maddi said. “I’d like to see your other familiars.”

“You have a metal cat, how is that an impressive familiar.” Her brother retorted.

“Is that what you think a mimic is?” Rayvin asked. “Kai, I know you like to play bruting protector but don’t be dense.”

“I’ve never heard of mimics, Rayvin,” Kai said.

“Love,” she responded softly. Levi’s eyebrows shot up. That was not what he expected, but if the families were truly that close, it made sense. “A mimic is a world-consuming organism. They are literal apocalypse beasts. Is this Anza,” she said slowly, “is this her full size?”

“No,” Levi said, not taking his eyes off Kai. Anza grew to her full alpha size, towering over the big man Kai. “Come on out, y’all. Aunty wants to meet you.” Willow manifested from his eyes, his crystal blue returning to their dark brown. It was in companion mode and looked every bit adorable. Vapor also manifested but she was behind Levi, standing like a scary guardian angel.

“Fascinating,” Maddi said.

“You have two apocalypse beasts as familiars,” Rayvin said.

“I do,” Levi said.

“Are you evil?” she asked. This earned a sharp look from her mother.

Levi chuckled, “it’s all good, Anna asks me that five times a day.” This got a laugh from everyone. “I’m not evil I just got lucky with my familiar summons, especially with Anza. If I learned anything from familiars, they tend to attract similar types. Anza was my first friend and then Willow,” he pointed to the crystal wisp. “Then Vapor. We form a pretty great team.” Tension dropped as everyone heard Levi speak so kindly of his intimidating gallery of familiars.

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“Well,” Rayvin said. “I wouldn't want to mess with you,” she said, giving Kai a pointed look.

“And yet people still do,” Levi said sarcastically. Once again, getting a collective laugh. The familiars returned to their fused states. Beside Anza, she went back to the size she preferred. Everyone went about eating dinner.

The rest of the night went well. Stories of old adventures, dungeons, and quests were told. Levi didn’t understand much of what was being said, but thankfully, Piper was sitting next to him, filling him in on everything. She did a great job at whispering the little bits of details that were not explicitly said. Levi looked on with sadness, too. Being here in this world had brought his mistakes to the front of his mind. He missed his family. He learned that he had always missed his family but was too destructive to realize it. Now, he could potentially never see them again, and that sucked.

Piper could sense that Levi was feeling down, she was going to try and distract him when Anna motioned her not to. Anna also saw her friend look sad. This was the first time he had actually allowed the sadness to show; he needed it. For too long, Levi had been repressing his feelings and it was going to hurt him if he didn’t deal with them.

As the night ended, Anna and Levi walked back to where they were sleeping. Piper stayed to hang out with her parents a little bit longer. Levi was tired, and Anna could spend time with her parents tomorrow. For now, she wanted to help take care of her friend.

“So,” Anna said. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, what, nothing,” Levi lied. Anna narrowed her eyes. “Okay, fine. It was so cool to meet everyone. But I miss my family. And uh being here kinda made it worse. I don’t know.” He sighed. “I haven’t seen my fam in a while and it’s not because I’ve been playing wizard for the past five months in new world… I messed up, Anna. I told them, I chose not to see them again. I chose to be mean. I made those choices, and I can’t do anything about it.”

“That’s crap and you know it,” Anna snapped.

“Excuse me?” Levi asked.

“Levi, what would you have done? Apologized to them and then what, all of a sudden you would have been good and picked up right where you left off?”

“Well, yeah that sounds good to me,”

“I’m sure it does,” Anna chuckled. “What about if they chose not to forgive you? What then?”

“Oh,” Levi said, shoulders slumping. “I guess I assumed that they would have just forgiven me.”

“Why should they?”

“Cause I’m family and you don’t turn your back on family,” Levi said softly.

“You did,” Anna pointed out. There was a pause as the words rang through Levi’s head. “Look, Levi.” Anna said to break the silence. “You can sit here every day continue to deny you’re upset. Deny your sadness, deny your role in the whole thing. By doing so you’re denying Piper and Me! Please, be sad. Be angry; be something! Your default is to sit back and pretend everything is okay. You have a choice right here right now.”

“And what’s that?” Levi asked tears forming. They had stopped walking. Anna turned to look at Levi in the eyes.

“To forgive yourself,” Anna said.

“I’m not sure I can Anna,” Levi said, voice shaking.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how… I spent so much of the past few years hating myself and the decisions I made. I plunged myself into being average. With being fine. My dad would be so disappointed in me, they never asked for much but to be great. To give my all in everything I do.” Tears were streaming down his face. “But my dad was killed before he achieved his crowning moment. Before he could be above average. All that work and fo what?? Life to be cruel and unyielding and take him away from me. I decided family was fickle, life was fickle, ain’t nothin in this world that was worth living fo. So, I stopped. I stopped coming to family events, I gave up at promotions or climbing the corporate ladder. I stopped doing what it took to be great. Life was meaningless, I gave up. To spite life for taking my dad away.”

“Did it help?”

“Not at all. I still carry the same damn pain and life still is unfair.”

“Is your world a safe haven? A eutopia?” Anna asked. She spotted that Piper was not too far away from them. Waving her in she flashed her a look of caution.

“Absolutely not,” Levi said. “We only have one species of intelligent beings, and we hate each other for the color of our skin. Our authorities are tyrants, our governments are in a state of total disarray, everything is too expensive and not enough money to service people, I could go on and on. But it’s not all bad. I loved where I was living, there were positives and negatives.”

“Then where did you ever get the idea that life was fair?” Anna asked. Levi paused and looked at Anna and Piper.

“I guess when my dad died, all I could think about was how unfair life was,” he answered.

“Levi,” Piper said softly. “You’re in a world where magic is given out randomly to who is a magic user and who isn’t. A world where you have status if you are blessed with that randomness. Our world may be just as unfair as your world… maybe more. Until you come to grips with who you are now and reconcile with the fact that life is not fair and bad things happen to good people. Just the same as good things happen to bad people. This world will chew you up. The thing that will prevent you from getting to 5-star, which I believe you can, is this,” she poked his brain and then his chest. “Levi, I love you, but you don’t process your emotions well at all. You hold onto them and pretend they have disappeared. So tomorrow. We’re locking you in the room until you start that process.”

“What she said!” Anna echoed. The two girls walked away leaving Levi alone to think about what was said.

“They are right you know,” Vapor said.

“I know,” Levi muttered. “Did she just casually drop that she loved me?” Levi asked.

Later that night as the trio had eventually fell into slumber. There was something happening in the summoner’s guild in Arvendon. A dim white orb illuminated some of the darkness that covered the hall. The orb was being controlled by a strange creature. The creature was humanoid but levitated as their feet were no longer functional. They had a grotesque stomach and one abnormally large arm with another normal one. Flaky green scales covered the being’s body. It had the face of a human with razor-sharp crocodile teeth. It was accompanied by a smaller, pretty female elf.

“He,” the creature said. “Was here.”

“Indeed,” The elf said. “We must find what he found, Grindel.” The pair searched the entire guild, following the faint aura trail that Levi left by just walking in the guild. The found a corner where his aura reminisced was the strongest. They crouched down, the elf pulled out some salt and began drawing a ritual circle. As she was drawing the circle the creature Grindel walked around the rest of the room.

“Where are we?” Grindel asked.

“It appears to be a ritual room,” she replied.

“I see,” Grindel mused. “Should we be doing that ritual?”

“It is a basic ritual Grindel, there should be nothing that is an issue, now please stop talking and let me concentrate.”

“Fine, but hurry up, Marleen,” the brute huffed. He left the room to give her time to finish drawing her ritual circle. Holding the orb of light in his hand, he moved it all over the room. Grindel’s race was originally not from this planet, it was centuries ago before a few of them arrived as refugees from their dying planet. The world they came from, everyone was a magic user; that trend was the same. Dubbed the Croco Aliens by the members of this world. They were humanoid crocodiles who grew large bodies. Grindel was affected by chaos magic that turned him into the monstrosity he is today. The chaos magic gave him immense powers and upgraded him to a 3-star sorcerer. He was at the pinnacle of 3-star magic users.

Croco-Aliens were born with an extraordinary aura sense. This helped them survive on a world where auras were not well controlled by most of the population. This allowed them to sense when someone was going to attack them or was too weak to make any moves. They took advantage and were able to settle in a region and run the natives away. Ever since his people have been surviving.

Grindel sensed an aura in this place. It felt like the person they were after but different. It was like he was still there, watching their every move. But to all senses, they were alone. This made Grindel nervous. They were not told how strong this summoner would be, but if an altercation arose, they were told to flee. What kind of being warrants that kind of treatment? Why are they the ones who should run? These questions plagued his mind and kept him on edge. Grindel was not one to run away from a fight, but he was not one to disobey orders either. He did his best to clear his head from these thoughts, but they were too potent.

“Grindel,” Marleen’s voice called. He went back to where she was. There ritual was active and there before them stood a shaky hologram image of Levi with his familiars. They were walking into this room and approaching a small box on the ground. The pair watched as he picked up the contents of the box and opened it. Levi had not stayed in the room for very long. As he was getting ready to leave, he stopped and looked directly at the hologram. Marleen flinched. That was odd. Had he known exactly where they were looking or was that a coincidence?

“Rewind,” Grindel said. They watched it backward until Grindel said, “there. He has three familiars, two of which I have never seen or heard of before. I am unsure of the abilities of those two. That one is a smoke spirit,” he said, pointing out Vapor.

“What good does knowing that do?” Marleen asked.

“It means that he likely has a stronger aura defense with a smoke spirit, we were right to be told to flee if we encounter him.” Grindel said.

“It sounds to me like you are a coward, scared of a ghost,” Marleen probed. “I wish to encounter him, so that we may finish the job and be rewarded handsomely.”

“You best watch your tone, elf,” Grindel growled. “Play your luck how you want but don’t call me a coward. I saw you flinch too, what spooked you?”

“He looked directly at us at the end,” Marleen said. “That should not be possible, was it luck or is he that strong?”

“What the hell is going on?” Levi’s voice rang throughout the ritual room. “Who are you? Where are you? What are you doing?”

Levi was sound asleep and had the strangest dream. After the emotional night he had with the girls, he fell asleep quickly. Not long after, his dreams were interrupted by a hideous crocodile and an elf. They were walking in a place that was just too dark for Levi to make out. In the dream he could hear them talk clearly, the disgusting crocodile was called Grindel, and the elf was called Marleen. They were setting up a ritual, looking for something.

Levi had never seen this ritual before; by all accounts, it looked basic. They were even using salt, one of the most basic ritual materials. There were three rune circles that showed that it was at least a 3-star ritual. The elf placed three different items in each room and chanted a lengthy incantation. Levi couldn’t understand the incantation and just watched. A hazy image of himself earlier today. He was watching someone, watch him, find the box.

The one named Grindel walked back into the room and pointed out Vapor. He told the other that Levi’s familiars were dangerous and that they were right not to engage. That part froze Levi. They were told to follow him; they were told to track him. They knew who he was and what he was doing there. Who were these people? How long had they been following Levi? Who told them that he was there in the first place? All these questions plagued the mind of Levi, but he didn’t have any answers. What was he to do? How could he see this?

Was this a feature of being an Omega, they could be connected through their familiars differently. But Anza or any of team Ember were there so that didn’t make sense. Was he even asleep anymore? This was possibly the most confused Levi had been since entering this world. He had never experienced dreaming like this. It was like he was lucid dreaming but also very much awake and present with them in that room.

“What the hell is going on?” He said. “Who are you? Where are you? What are you doing?”