I ran to tell Faelyn that Rafael was okay with her coming with them. She was surprised when I threw the door open and ran to her.

“Faelyn! Rafael said it was okay for you to come with!”

Faelyn smiled and laughed at me. “When are we leaving?”

“Tomorrow morning.” I grinned back at Faelyn.

“Then I will have to start packing my things.” Faelyn giggled.

“Why are you laughing?” I tilted my head

“Because you’re really cute when you’re excited.”

I could feel the blush warm my face and embarrassment slipped into my thoughts. “Thank you… You’re too kind to me.”

“No, I’m not, just telling you things how I see it. You should go and pack your things, though, because Rafael will want to leave early, like always.”

“You’re right!” I smiled at Faelyn before leaving her room and walking back to where I was staying and started packing my things. Though, as time went, I just got more and more excited for our journey together, back to somewhere I know with Faelyn.

When I finished packing I was no more tired than when I started, so I got out of bed to head to the training room.

“Where are you going?” Rafael sat up and looked concerned.

“I am going to practice in the training room because I can’t sleep.”

“Alright. Be careful.”

“Will do!” I said as I closed the door behind me. I made a quick walk to the training room.

I opened the door and noticed that the dummies and the floorboards were no longer charred and in pieces, stood there were dummies ready to be beat up. I took my place across from the dummies and thought about what I wanted to try.

I decided to see what would happen when I put a sword through an open mirror. I opened up the mirror on the ground in front of me and dropped the sword in. When I opened the mirror back up to see if it was still there the sword shot straight up, leaving a cut in my cheek. After I rationalized what just happened, I decided that I have to be more careful about trying new things because I now had a cut on my face and my sword was very thoroughly stuck in the ceiling.

I tried different words to try and pull the sword down, but nothing worked until I used the word telekinesis. I pulled the sword out and held it floating in the air. I could feel the sword in my mind and could just move it like an extra arm. Then I got the idea to use telekinesis to put more energy to the sword on the way in the mirror in front of me. I moved the mirror to the side of the dummies and opened the mirror, again. The sword shot out at a terrifying speed and sliced clean through all four of the dummies’ necks. I grabbed the sword with telekinesis before the sword got stuck in the wall and brought it back to me. The plan I had worked out, and I will definitely try that in combat.

I got one more idea, and tried telekinesis on both swords. It wasn’t any harder and I could still feel the two swords, independently. I then threw them both in the mirror, and made another mirror for the second sword. I opened the mirrors and watched the dummies get shredded and brought my swords back to me. I was very happy with the results of my practice and decided to go back to the room and try to go to sleep.

In the morning, I was up earlier than Rafael, which very much took me by surprise. I started by changing clothes and making Rafael’s coffee, so it would be done and warm around the time he got up. I went back to the training room to work on my new found sword magic. The dummies were completely new and the hole in the ceiling was gone.

I started by repeating what I had done last night, and then I wanted to start adding on to it. I wanted to see if I could bounce the swords between mirrors, so that I could attack and reclaim the sword with a mirror to attack more times. I found that if I sent them through the mirrors, again, the swords would get faster and faster, until I made myself dizzy keeping track of them. I decided this was something that would need more than two swords to be effective and not make me dizzy.

To complete the task, I used the words ‘sword summon’ and made about six more swords made of solidified energy. I tried to use them with the mirrors, but when I opened the mirrors for them to go in, they vanished as soon as they hit the mirror. I needed to get my hands on more swords, so that they won’t vanish and I can keep using them.

I decided to give the sword juggling a pause, until I could ask Rafael to teach me how to smith more swords. For now, I was going to focus casting spells from the swords, as the swords came out of the mirrors. I tried to cast lightning bolt from them, but the swords were too quick and didn’t give me the time to cast. If I could cast faster, then I think it would work.

Although what I wanted didn’t work out, I was pleased at the progress I was making with what I already taught myself. I still left the training room proud of my new findings.

I was walking back to see if Rafael was up and I ran into Faelyn, at the entrance to the hallway. “Hey, Joey!” She smiled and waved, like it was any normal morning.

“Hi! Did you sleep alright?”

“Like a rock. What has you up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep so I went to practice my magic, in the training room.”

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“What did you practice?”

“I was working on some new things I have found. I’ll have to show you them, sometime.”

“Yes, please! Where’s Rafael?”

“He was asleep when I left, maybe he got up because he smelled the coffee that I started for him.”

“Let’s go see!” Faelyn’s excitement made my heart skip a beat because she was so cute. I followed her back to the room Rafael and I shared, and I went through the door why she waited behind. I saw Rafael stirring his coffee, like always, and he looked at me with a smile.

“You’re finally up on time.” Rafael chuckled and gave me a nod of approval. “What kept you up?”

“I was really excited to go back home and to bring Faelyn to where I grew up.”

“Well, I am packed and ready. If you two are packed, then we can head out, now that I have had my coffee.”

“I’m packed!” Faelyn said loud enough to hear through the door.

I wasted no time in grabbing my belongings and walking to the entrance of the shelter. I waited while Faelyn and Rafael grabbed their belongings and met me at the entrance to leave. We walked back to the truck that Rafael and I came in, which didn’t end up totalled like I thought it would. I sat in the back seat, so that Faelyn could sit up front with Rafael.

“When we get back, will you teach me how to smith swords?” I asked.

“I don’t see why not, I have a lot of metal to use.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

I leaned on the inside of the truck door and dozed off, until Rafael woke me up to tell me that we made it to Nobho. I was happy to see that we were close to home. Rafael got out of the car and made me drive to Tanasa.

When we got to Tanasa, the city was plagued with umbra, and the closer we drove, the screaming of people was almost all you could hear. We all quickly got out of the car and readied to fight the umbra. We worked our way through the streets as a group. I kept slashing the umbra, for fear the new attacks would backfire in some way. People who made it to the streets grouped up with us and stayed behind.

I was anxious to find the house my mother was staying in when I got shoved into the dream realm. I continued to slay umbra, but there were so many that it was difficult to keep pace with all the screamers that needed to be silenced, to avoid any more of the umbra. I decided it would be best to start casting sword slashes because they could cleave through three or four screamers at a time. Rafael, fighting seriously, started using magic with his bare hands. Rafael was a lot stronger than he led me to believe. Soon enough, the street to where I lived was cleared of umbra. I hurried to the house, with Faelyn next to me. I entered the house by kicking down the door. I was appalled to find the entire apartment in disarray, the back entrance broken down, and blood splatters everywhere. My mother was nowhere to be found. All that was left was her blood, covering the walls.

I was hurt, and I was angry with a need for vengeance. I couldn’t keep down the tears that welled in my eyes. As my vision grew blurrier, my blood began to boil. All I could think about was how bad I wanted to cleanse the city of umbra, no, the world. They have taken everything away from me.

“Fire, cleanse the darkness.” I said quietly.

Every window of the house glowed with the blazing fire. I could feel the fire put strain on me, pulling me down to my knees. “Faelyn, help…” I crawled towards her. I touched her hand and everything went silent.

Rafael jostled me awake. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright.” I said back, sluggishly.

“What do you remember?”

“My mother’s blood and fire out the window.”

“You burned all the umbra and the buildings down. The people of the city are now moving to other places. The fire was blue hot and the umbra disappeared as ashes to the wind.”

“Good, they killed my mother…”

“You’re lucky you’re alive, after magic like that.”

“It didn’t matter to me because the umbra and the gods who ‘chose’ me took everything I had away from me.”

“Well, with some training, you could continue to burn them away, but without the city being leveled and knocking yourself out.”

I got up and opened my eyes. Rafael was on my left and Faelyn was sitting quietly on my right. “I’m sorry for the worry I’ve caused you…” I said in shame.

“I’m just happy that you’re alive.” Faelyn said to me, concerned.

I stood up from the bed, feeling completely fine, and decided to grab my weapons. I walked outside to the place Rafael and I trained before leaving to find Yaoba. The better memories here made it nostalgic, even though it wasn’t that long ago. This is my home, now. I started pulling up mirrors and throwing my swords in and catching them when they came out. I kept throwing them and continued trying to cast sword slashes from the blades when they came out. I wanted to try something new, and cast the sword slash spell and release them at the same time. Sure enough, I cut through some branches of the nearby trees. I kept using the sword slash spell with my sword juggle and chopping the bags of sand and other targets, appropriate for training. I have to be stronger, and fight for other people so they don’t lose everything, too.

I kept sword clashing things while letting my mind go numb, but I was interrupted when Faelyn put her hand on my shoulder.

“You really are talented as a hunter, Joey. You saved so many lives in such a short time. You have a gift.”

“Thank you…” I looked at Faelyn, her yellow eyes searching my face. “I really appreciate the effort, but I will need time to find my strength and joy, again.”

“If you need to talk, I am here. Maybe I can help?”

“Will you spar with me?”

“Sure!” Faelyn went to the other side of the training area, weapons ready.

I started by dropping my swords in a small mirror in front of me and then I waited for Faelyn to make the first move. Faelyn took to running towards me with her short-swords and swinging them at me. I could dodge a good amount of them, but I decided to summon two more swords and fought back, sword to sword. Faelyn fought faster and faster, until I couldn’t keep up and she pulled her swords up to my neck, winning the sparring. I still pulled the sword I dropped up behind her and tapped her shoulder with one of them. “Gotcha!” I said, laughing at myself.

“You have a nice laugh!” Faelyn smiled and giggled, making my face warm.

“Thank you, Fae. I really needed that. I regret not being there to save her, but I will use that feeling to protect as many people as I possibly can.” I gently smiled through my flustered feelings.

“Anything I can do to help!” Faelyn sat down on the ground. “I’ll be here, if you should need me.”

I went back to practicing with my sword juggling and slicing targets. The only time I stopped was to set up new targets. Focusing on the targets made the pain of my situation less on the forefront of my mind. I just imagined the targets were umbra and taking the anger of my loss out on them, violently.

When the dark of night came, Faelyn and I went back inside with a dinner of sandwiches that were already made and put on the table. Faelyn and I sat and ate, then we left to find places to sleep. There was a bed and a futon on the floor. I took the futon, so that Faelyn can have something nicer than the floor or a sleeping bag, for once.