The restaurant seemed very busy tonight. Penny figured it might be because it is such a clear and beautiful night. However, there were so many tables it hardly mattered. They took a seat at a brown table with a red and black checker pattern on the top. He sat across from her. Penny was simply patiently waiting, but he couldn’t help but look around. Chris noticed three guards eating at a table on the far left talking and enjoying themselves. He could hear them from here erupting into laughter at their captain’s jokes. The captain was the only guard to wear blue markings on his red attire and sat across from the other two. These guards were clearly off duty or on break, and their weapons lie beside them. A halberd, a firearm that appeared to be a rifle, and a two-handed sword.
“Penny?”
“Yes?”
“What would it be like if I did choose to fight?” he questioned.
“It’s dangerous, but you get the right training...Everyone gets training, you’d just apply it and you’d be closer to your sister. You’ll get a partner who’s linked to your soul, mind, and body, but who knows? I’m hoping I get a good partner, but I don’t know...”
“Maybe I’ll get you,” he interjected.
“That is a possibility actually, yeah. I could probably keep you alive, but you gotta hold your own,” she replied briefly.
“I know that, but I think I could be useful...or I hope so.”
There was a small crashing noise to his right, like something fell. Chris imagined that it was probably a mistake. There was a louder crash and then a table flipped into the air. All three guards grabbed their weapons and moved to investigate. Penny stood up.
“Where are you going?” Chris asked, entirely confused.
“To help,” Penny made it sound like it was obvious.
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Probably, but it’s a Wizard’s job, and that means it’s your job too. Come on before someone gets hurt.”
“But I don’t have a weapon and neither do you!” Chris insisted.
Penny summoned a small round blue shield with the Alliance symbol painted on in yellow onto her left arm; its wings stretched proudly to both edges. The shield was only big enough to cover her arm, and she wore the strap on her forearm. The shield was not small enough to be a buckler, but not large enough to be a full body barrier. In her right hand, she held a small sword, only about the length of her full arm. The sword had a blue hilt, and very clean blade. She handed him the sword and beckoned him to follow her.
“Wait, how will you fight if I have this?” He questioned.
“I have my shield, it wouldn’t be the first time I had to fight without that.” She declared as she ran off toward the danger.
Chris ran after her and held the sword tightly in his right hand. It was smaller than the last sword he held...or imagined holding apparently, but it would do. Multiple civilians were tripping over each other to get away, Chris never imagined that he would be the one running toward danger.
There were no less than five grey wolves moving into the zone. Each one was growling and looking as if wanting a fight. Each of the city guards stood their ground to prevent them from moving further. Penny ran in immediately and blocked a wolf that was heading for the guard with the Halberd and then quickly spun around to smack it away. The guard with the rifle continued to fire, but the bullets only staggered their targets.
“Sir! Look! Wizards!” Cried one of the guards on the right with the sword.
“Won’t be the last time you see one, rookie! Focus…” the captain ordered. “New guys…”
Penny blocked a wolf lunging at her, tossing it over her head with both of her arms and blocking another attack with her shield. Chris joined her and began to attack. He was able to injure two wolves that backed off and began to pace in the back while the other three continued to attack. The guards stayed behind them to make sure nothing would get passed them.
Chris felt a sharp pain on his left leg, and for a moment, his leg went numb before he felt himself being dragged by a wolf. One of the pack members that had previously backed off had taken the opportunity to bite his leg and try to drag him away. Chris tried swinging the sword at it to free himself or even scare it off, but the sword was so short that the creature simply didn’t care enough to even glance up at him.
Penny’s shield came flying through the air, crashed into the wolf, knocked it unconscious, and caused it to fall over onto its right side. The shield returned to Penny as she was running over to where Chris was. She extended her free hand and pulled him up.
“You’re worrying me.” She told him. “Are you okay at least?”
“I’m fine...just stings,” He insisted as he got up to his feet and continued to fight.
One of the guards was now on the ground attempting to throw a wolf off of his torso, it was attempting to bite his face. Chris quickly ran over and stabbed it through the back, pressing all of his strength down on one attack. It fell over, but it was not dead, just immobile.
The other three wolves ran off toward the woods and vanished into the darkness of the night, leaving their fallen behind. The guard was helped to his feet by Chris.
“They just ran...we never get wolf attacks much...did you see how fast they moved?” The captain remarked. “Wolves don’t do that. Not even here.”
“They seemed tampered with.” Penny decided.
As she said this, a teacher wearing white and green approached. She had greying hair, and a slightly wrinkled face. With her was a young man about Emily’s age with red hair, and a black colored outfit with art to resemble embers.
“Oh dear. Are any alive?” She questioned.
“Both alive, Ma’am. These two Wizards fought them off.We couldn’t have done much on our own.” He began to give an account.
The boy approached Chris and stared at him for a moment before giving him a slight face.
“Who are you? Did you dye your hair or something?” He questioned.
“No. I’m Chris, nice to meet you,” Chris told him as they shook hands.
“Hunter? Did you see all of that?” Penny asked him. “Those wolves weren’t normal.”
“We got the alert just when it happened. You wouldn’t believe how fast some of these civilians ran to the guard station and the Wizard schools just to get help. I’d say at least half.” He sighed. “I’d say good job, but it’d get old since you’re used to this, Penny.”
Penny pointed slightly at Chris with her eyes, “He’s new. Actually, he did well... he almost got himself killed, but he still did impress me.” She admitted. “I’m thinking I’ll train him...maybe. Or I can leave him to you.”
“I swear he reminds me of Emily... You wouldn’t happen to be her little brother, would you?” He guessed. Chris nodded. “I see.”
“Hunter!” The teacher cried. “Hunter! Come over here! Help me transport these creatures to the hospital for study, inform any available experienced life Wizard. I’m going to heal them first.”
“Yes Ms. Sapovitts,” Hunter replied as he took up one of the wolves and began to leave. “Ciao.”
Chris watched Hunter and the teacher leave, and as he turned back to where Penny was, he noticed she was gone. She was over with the manager of the restaurant who was thanking her and shaking her hand rapidly. Penny didn’t really react and Chris didn’t hear much. As they were leaving the restaurant, Penny explained that they were allowed to eat at Las Estrellas anytime they wanted for free with their friends, if they liked.
After their brief encounter at the restaurant, the two decided to relax in one of the parks for a while. Penny seemed relaxed like nothing happened, but Chris seemed very tense. He kept rolling up his bloody, torn pants leg, only to see time and time again that the wounds had gone and his skin had healed. Penny glanced over at Chris curiously.
“Did you not believe me when I said you could heal rapidly?” She asked him.
“I did...I just figured it would...hurt...like stitches would.” He explained. “I don’t even remem
ber it healing. It did feel tingly briefly.”
“You did a good job back there, even though I had to save you...You need to watch your back. It’s not all about just swinging.”
“Hey!” Chris interrupted her, slightly bugged. “I did try! I mean… I don’t know how to fight. The most I ever did was beat a Sorcerer in the imagination realm.”
“And that is impressive, but nothing if you can’t watch yourself,” she pointed out.
They both stared off into the water in silence. Chris picked up a rock and skipped it across the water. It skipped halfway and sunk into the pond. Penny looked at him curiously and grabbed a rock and attempted the same; it sank to the bottom of the pond immediately. She sighed softly under her breath and pointed at the water.
“Watch this…in a few seconds that pond is going to light up. I think it’s dark enough.” Penny told him, she sounded fairly excited.
Chris watched the water for a moment, when all of a sudden, the water lit up a bright blue color, shimmering and shining. Penny explained that this was magic inside of the water that would show brightly at night. It was beautiful to him, but Penny just stared at it, as if she was in deep thought. Chris looked at her curiously and wondered just what was up with this girl. As Penny looked at the body of water, Chris thought he saw her glance over at him and then look back. Perhaps she was wondering about him too.
Chapter 6
Penny Dreadful
The next morning, Chris began to wake up as Penny shook him lightly. He opened his eyes to see her brown eyes staring down at him. She was telling him to wake up. Chris sat up and scratched his head. He was not yet fully awake and was not used to waking up so early (or at least it felt early to him).
“We are training you today. Not on magic just yet, but simple sword fighting,” Penny informed him.
“Why so early?” He asked. “Couldn’t this have waited…”
“You need to get used to waking up early. I got you food, but it’s probably cold now because you woke up so late. I couldn’t get you up the past few times and I was about to pour water on you.”
“Thank you for not doing that I guess…Did you at least wait to eat with me?” He asked, however Penny’s expression said otherwise. “Okay.”
There was a small red and white box with rice. He found it strange that she had gotten rice boxes so early in the morning, but she told him she did not feel like getting anything farther. He simply assumed she wanted it. He began to eat, but he found it slightly difficult, because he had so many questions. Last night he could not sleep until much later, he was wondering about everything he had learned the day before and fighting Gatchi, and he still knew nothing about magic. Sure, he would learn how to fight, but where would that get him?
He asked himself why he was here...he chose to come to see his sister of course, but he felt so angry at her, and in turn angry at himself for coming. She had hidden so much from him, but he was still glad she was okay. There was so much on his mind in fact, that he had given himself a major headache.
Penny was already dressed for the day. She wore a similar outfit to yesterday, however this time she wore a navy-blue belt.
Chris ate his food. As Penny warned him, it was cold, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He needed to eat, according to her, to keep his strength up. She also explained that he would probably be worn out and sore. As he listened to all of this, he began to wonder just how long she had been doing this. However, he could not wonder about this long as her voice interrupted him.
“Ready to go?” She asked. “Come on...hurry and get dressed. You need to get in the habit of getting up early,” she left the room. “I’ll be back.”
Chris got dressed in the bathroom, wanting to avoid an awkward situation if she came back into the bedroom area. He didn’t know what he was going to be doing, so he got dressed in jeans, a blue t-shirt, and a light blue jacket. He stepped out and there was Penny holding a sword, but it clearly wasn’t hers. It was much longer and reminded him of the imaginary one he wielded when he had fought Gatchi.
“Why the jacket?”
“I usually wear a jacket.” he told her. “What’s wrong with it?”
“Why?” she asked bewildered.
“I just do-- Style I guess.”
“Style won’t keep you alive unless you’re a model,” Penny scolded. “Wait you’re not a model, are you?”
“No way,” he laughed as he removed the jacket, threw it on the bed, and followed her out, closing the door behind them and locking it.
They made their way through the city and toward the steps that led to Las Estrellas. She stopped walking and leaned against the wall.
“What are you--” Chris stared at her.
“Thirty laps up and down the stairs,” she said. “You need to get warmed up, and it isn’t that many stairs.”
“What?” He was dumbfounded. She was serious, and showed no sign of joking. “There are like twenty or more stairs Penny. I’m just starting out, isn’t that a bit much?” He pleaded.
“That’s very true.” She agreed. “I’ll shave off half then-fifteen laps.”
“Less than fifteen!” He tried again. “No way, my lungs will give out!”
“Actually, as a magic user you have more stamina, ability, and if all else fails you could use mana… once you learn how to.” she smirked. “Come on, don’t you wanna impress me?”
“Penny.”
“Chris.”
He groaned and proceeded to run the fifteen laps. On the fourth lap, he was panting, and by the tenth, he was struggling to catch his breath. Penny watched and said nothing the whole time. If he started to give up, walked, or slowed from his starting pace, she would threaten to add a lap. In the end, he ended up doing nineteen laps.
When he got to the top of the stairs again, Penny was there with a bottle of water. He had not seen her leave to go get it, but he was too tired to have been paying attention when she did. She gave it to him and giggled slightly. Is she laughing at me?
“Don’t look so tired, this was nothing. If that was a life or death situation, you would have lived,” she punched his arm lightly. “Trust me, the first time I ever did something like that was on a mountain with my mother and my sister.”
“Isn’t that extreme?” he groaned.
“No, the extreme part was falling down halfway, waiting to fast heal, and even though mom said to stop, I just got up and made it to the top anyway.”
She sat there with him until he caught his breath and relaxed even slightly. She made him stretch and then led him over to the training area of the city. There were training dummies, multiple training courses, stands to watch that were currently empty, a shooting range (for magic of course), and much more that he didn’t get to see. They were here to meet Hunter, Penny thought he would be a better teacher.
Penny handed Chris the sword from earlier, “Emily told me to give that to you.”
“Emily?” he blinked. “Why?”
“Yeah, she got it for you, I guess she figured it would fit you. I ran into her when I stepped out. She’s not in the city right now, she’s on a mission.” She explained.
“What kind of mission?”
“The same kind my sister was on. It won’t take as long though, it’s only to Iotis...That planet has all kinds of issues, but if anyone could handle it--”
“Wait, why was I harder? If that planet is having issues, I mean…” he asked curiously.
Penny stopped walking and thought for a moment and folded her arms. “I was going to say this nicely, but I’ll just say it outright. Your planet’s governments suck.”
“It does,” Hunter agreed, having overheard this conversation. “Your government won’t let us protect them even after what happened in Japan-- or at least what is left of Japan.”
“Pretty much. They don’t trust magic users...us or the Empire…the Sorcerers…. No one can get them to listen. We asked them nicely...they said no to both sides.” Penny continued on.
&n
bsp; “But the Imperials didn’t take no for an answer and sent Sorcerers to attack. Your government probably told you Japan was just an accident or a disease...whatever...but that’s them covering their mistake.”
“But then why? Why not tell the people?” Chris asked. Hunter brandished his sword and stared at it for a moment, debating how to answer. “I mean, that would make it so at least they know.”
“They dug themselves in a hole and they don’t know what to do, so now they’re neutral and trying to basically keep the people in the dark while also defending themselves. It’s stupid if you ask me. Picking a side is always better than staying neutral and being caught in the middle. Now they’re down a country and still won’t listen.” he told Chris.
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Chris said. “Why won’t they tell them?”
“They want Earth to be away from the conflict when this all boils over, and your government has always been secretive.” he replied again, looking at Chris through the side of his eye. “Since forever, right?”
Chris looked down and took a moment to process this, but before he could, Hunter’s blade came dangerously close to his neck.
“Your reflexes are terrible.” He said. Penny stepped back and sat in the stands just watching.
“I wasn’t ready!” Chris replied, outraged.
“You wouldn’t have had a chance to make that excuse if that had landed. I doubt you could have spoken without covering up your neck.” He said harshly. “Try again.”
Hunter drew back his sword and swung again. Chris quickly brought up his own, blocking it, but as he did, Hunter’s elbow came quickly into his forehead. He felt a sudden and extreme pain on his forehead, almost dizzy for a moment. He fell to all fours, but got up, using the sword to lift himself up.
Hunter circled him slowly, “Watch my movements.”
“I am.” Chris shot back.
“Okay, show me then.”
He swung at Chris’ knee. Chris parried the blow by holding his sword vertically and swung at Hunter who merely dodged to the left and tripped him so he fell on his back. He held the sword again to his neck.
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