Young Swordmaster's Journey

It was the loud, demeaning shout of Glenn Larstud that rather abruptly ended the two-versus-one sparring that Alec, Olivia, and Callum had been doing. The green-haired boy locking up as if his entire existence had suddenly been dunked under ice, and the two personal students of the headmaster merely levelling flat, unimpressed looks upon the black-haired boy.

They had both been enjoying that particular spar, mostly because it finally let them put the pressure on Callum instead of the other way around, and now it had been completely and utterly ruined by the last person that any of them wanted to show up.

Since the last time that they had interacted with Glenn, the boy seemed to have let his hair grow out a little bit while having given everything below his temples an incredibly short, uniform buzz cut. If Alec were honest, the look didn't suit him very well.

If Olivia were honest, he looked even more ugly and bullish than he already had.

At his sides, like ever-loyal puppies that barked and snarled oh-so adorably at anything that approached their master, were Lex and Ryx. Who, it should be noted, Alec still couldn't be bothered learning the actual names of.

"Glenn." Callum responded, evidently attempting to keep his voice calm and steady, but unable to completely repress the small waver that undercut his entire act with ludicrous ease.

"Eyyyy! Royal Boy!" Glenn replied, a grin on his face that one might have been forgiven for believing was genuine.

If, of course, they were blind.

"What are you doing here, Glenn?" Callum responded, his grip on his blade tightening to the point that quiet, ominous creaks began to sound from its hilt.

"This is the training ground, Royal Boy. You three don't own it." Ryx responded snidely as he walked up to Olivia, blocking her direct path to Glenn.

"Yeah, you think that just because you're joining the Power Stance classes now that you're hot shit that gets to call the shots now, huh? Nuh uh, little baby." Lex mocked Alec, blocking his direct path to Glenn much the same as his brother while leaning forward into his personal space once more.

All that the two of them got for their efforts to demean and intimidate the two younger adventurers were flat, blank stares. Looks so devoid of any emotion that for a brief moment, both of the twins thought that they might have just been ignored by the two of them entirely.

Except, the moment that Glenn used the opportunity the two of them had created to march right up to Callum, like a King walking down the steps leading up to his throne, their eyes finally gained some light back as they flicked to Glenn and then back to their respective twin almost faster than they could catch.

There was something in their gazes as they looked at the twins that a brighter, more experienced swordsman may have found intimidating or worrying, unfortunately Lex and Ryx were neither of those things.

"Is there something wrong with me being here, Royal Boy? Something you don't like about it?" Glenn challenged with a grin, placing his hands on his hips and leaning into Callum's personal space with all the care of a young child with a magnifying glass and a couple of ants nearby.

"You know…" Callum muttered, trying to maintain eye contact with the far stockier boy but unable to do so for more than a second or two.

"Oh, I don't think I do. Come on, speak up. You know how to use your words don't you? Like a big boy."

Both Alec and Olivia's gazes moved to Glenn once more as he kicked his taunting up a notch, their weights shifting ever so slightly. Which, unfortunately for their peace of mind, Lex and Ryx noticed.

"Uh uh, sweetheart. Eyes on me." Ryx sneered, leering down at Olivia with a look halfway between cruel and perverted.

Slowly, calmly, her gaze slid back to Ryx with a raised eyebrow that, had Ryx not been the recipient of her look, would have looked somewhere between apathetic and mildly amused.

Yet all that he could pay attention to was the unique, distinctly sharp, feeling of utter dread that filled his body and locked his joints. Her eyes staring straight through him, piercing him like a hundred knives and glowing faintly in the shade that his own body created across her form.

Ryx was a confident young man, a skilled [Iron-rank] [Swordsman] that had long since risen above the mess of a fighter he had been when he had joined the Dragon-Scale Sword Academy as a lowly [Copper-rank] adventurer. Yet in that exact moment, following that comment, he was more aware of his own mortality than he ever had been before in his life.

If Ryx did one thing wrong, if he so much as made one more comment out of line, Olivia would swing that wooden blade of hers at him. In that moment, he wasn't so sure that it was still a 'non-lethal' weapon designed with the students safety in mind, not in Olivia's hands.

"Aw what's wrong, so scared that you can't even look little ol' me in the eye?" Lex snickered across from him, leant to the side mockingly with his hands on his hips and eyes wide open.

'What a farce.'

It was the only thought that passed through Alec's mind as his own gaze moved back to the twin antagonizing him, but it was the only one that had to. For it was more true than any fantasy going through their minds, and he knew that to the very depths of his soul.

He could tell what they were trying to do, a fairly common beast hunting strategy amongst adventurers of all ranks, splitting their focus. This entire play of theirs required Glenn to be able to toy with and mock Callum to his hearts content, but he didn't have the confidence to get past Alec and Olivia himself and thus sent in his lackeys.

By having Lex and Ryx constantly taunting the both of them and pushing into their personal space, it drowned out anything that they might have tried to say and allowed Glenn to focus all his attention on his real target, rather than having to try and deal with a situation that might not be as favourable for him. In a perfect scenario, Lex and Ryx would know exactly how hard to push and what strings to pull to distract them from Glenn and his incessant mockery entirely.

This, unfortunately for them, was not a perfect scenario.

Lex and Ryx were pushing too hard, letting their egos get in the way and losing sight of the real goal that they were meant to be fulfilling. It was honestly child's play to wind the both of them up, and Alec wasn't even dealing with one of them. All he had to do was keep his cool, or at least just appear like he was, and occasionally look back over towards Glenn and he would end up winding Lex up until he made a mistake that he couldn't come back from.

Alec hoped that he would do so quickly, he was getting a bit annoyed with the barbed wire and sickening poison leaving the burly bully's lips and wanted to make sure that he left an impression that stuck. He would have to time it perfectly though, because as much as he thought that Alec was unable to notice it, the blue haired teen had caught the occasional flicker of the black-haired boys eyes as he continued to cruelly tear down Callum with all that he had.

"Why would I look you in the eye?" Alec questioned with a cock of his head to the side, looking for all the world like a stray puppy in a new house or an intern being introduced to all the technical terms and jargon of a new business.

"Wha- Because I'm speaking to you!" Lex seethed, his hands flexing in anger and his face puffed up.

Alec would have called the attempt to look angry and intimidating cute, if the person it was attached to wasn't so utterly boring and hateable.

"So? You aren't exactly saying much." He shrugged, looking back over at Glenn and Callum just in time to catch one of the larger boy's quick glances over at him.

It was a little freeing, if Alec were honest, to speak his mind freely without having to pass it through a thousand and one filters and checks to make sure that he wasn't sticking his foot in his mouth accidentally. With Olivia and Callum, he had been slowly getting used to interacting with them more comfortably, as he once had with Blessed Catalyst, but that took a lot of effort and time to get to that level.

Especially as far as Olivia was concerned.

However, with these three? He didn't care if they didn't like him in the end. He didn't care if they thought him rude and cruel. He most certainly didn't care if they never wanted anything to do with him again and did all that they could to avoid him. In fact, a scenario like that was probably his most favoured one. So, he made no attempt to filter what he said or sand off the edges for the first time in a long time, and what a thrill that was.

"Wha- Of course I am! You should learn to respect your betters!"

"If I see one, I'll be sure to do that. Do you see one?"

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It was almost too easy to rile the mohawked boy up, in Alec's opinion. Though, he admitted to himself, that may have been because he was so used to people with either tempers with a fuse as long as a countries border, or a self-confidence so unshakeable that he would sooner cut a castle in half with a spoon than put a chip in it. However, despite the disconcerting ease with which he was able to do so, he was quite happy that Lex had such a flimsy arrogance to him, it would make getting him to snap far, far easier.

Glenn's cruel mockery of his friend continued, all sharpened edges and bile-coated hooks designed specifically to catch onto any shred of weakness they could find on the green-haired teen and drag him as unceremoniously to his knees as they could. However, Alec could see it stalling and stuttering, his attention forced to flick between Alec and his true target more and more as he continued to rile up his tall Stringbean of a lackey.

In moments that Alec most certainly wouldn't have had the perception or reflexes to notice when he had first joined the academy, the dark eyes of the far stockier boy would flash in his direction, watching for a moment when he might need to step in. Watching for a moment important enough that he might need to give up his main goal of tearing Callums confidence, and good mood, into small pieces of confetti and actually stop Lex from getting his head caved in.

If this were a different situation, one that Alec was utterly disconnected to, the blue-haired boy might have found it amusing how valiantly he tried to continue his tirade while continually worrying about the situation around him. However, it wasn't, and he didn't.

"Look," Alec began taking a meandering step around Lex, a blasé shrugging motion placing his blade just where he wanted it to be when the other shoe finally dropped, "I get that you're meant to be big and scary. Good job. But I really don't have the time to keep this up anymore. Great routine though, lackey."

It happened in an instant, a series of events so fast that even to Alec, who had been slowly putting it into motion and, arguably, the most prepared of anyone there, it took him a second or two after it had finished to fully put together all that had occurred.

Between him and Lex, and Olivia and Ryx, was headmaster Xyn, a wooden blade in each of his hands. Beneath him, on one hand and one knee, with the other leg bent and his other arm held out to his side to stabilize his balance, Glenn stared at the ground with a look that Alec could not see, his shoulders trembling ever so slightly. Between him and Olivia, behind the headmaster, both Lex and Ryx stumbled back and bumped into each other, only holding themselves up through a combined effort to press against each other and keep their balances.

Ahead of all of them, staring wide-eyed at the suddenly gathered group of people and with a mouth that, for once, had no words, was Callum. His own brain trying to put together the chaos of that one singular moment to figure out how, exactly, things had gotten to this point.

"Well now." Xyn's voice seemed to cut through the stunned silence as easily as his blade did a piece of paper, everyone's eyes on him with rapt attention, "I know that I've always said that I want energetic students always willing to learn. But I don't quite think that this is what I was intending when I said that. Do you?"

XXXxxxXXX

Headmaster's Office, Twenty Minutes Later

Xyn let out a quiet, content sigh while taking a sip from a thick ceramic mug. Its faded blue colouration only marred by the large, blocky letters stamped into the side.

I graduated from Dragon-Scale, what have you done?

A bit of an understatement and a small ego trip for the man? Absolutely, but he made no attempts to hide his ego and thought that the looks that his mug produced was honestly more than worth any downsides that the mug might have brought with it.

Unfortunately for his sense of amusement though, while both of the teens currently sitting in his office noticed the writing on his mug, the surprise and novelty had long since worn off on them and thus left with him nothing left but to simply enjoy the drink currently held inside its sweet ceramic embrace. A not wholly negative consolation, he supposed.

"First off, I want to preface that neither of you are in trouble." Xyn said, placing his mug down on his desk and looking between his two students.

"And yet both Glenn and Callum walked out of here earlier looking like you had sent them to the gallows." Olivia responded with a simple cross of her arms and raise of her brow.

Which, given neither of them had any idea of what had been said in the office between the three of them, he supposed explained their apprehension just a little bit.

"Entirely unrelated to me dolling, or not dolling, out punishments as an official figure of the academy. That has to do with their own circumstances."

At those words, a small light of comprehension dawn in Olivia's eyes, yet all that Alec did was cock his head to the side slightly, getting a small mental hum from the headmaster.

'Alec isn't aware of the situation surrounding those two? Interesting. I would have thought that at least someone would have told him by now.'

"Alright. So then why are we here?" Alec asked, trying his best to keep his inflection even and curious to avoid sounding overly caustic or defensive.

"Because if I hadn't stepped in, some of the professors might have in my place, and I need to at least make sure that you two aren't going around and starting random fights on academy grounds." Xyn explained with a small snort, only to pause and tilt his head back for a moment in thought, "Well, actual fights and not training spars. We are still at a sword academy after all."

"Wha- We didn't- Gh…." Olivia's impassioned cry ended as quickly as it started, her expression darkening and her fists balled tightly as her mouth shut with a small click.

The fire was still there, the both of them could see it, but it was almost as if she had simply decided that trying to defend her side of the argument was pointless and unlikely to go anywhere at all.

"Believe me, I heard two very conflicting stories from Callum and Glenn." Xyn snorted in amusement, leant back in his chair and regarding the both of them with a fairly lackadaisical expression, "However I've been around long enough to recognize a con man when I see one. And Glenn is far from the greatest that I've seen. Kid couldn't hide his aggression towards Callum if he tried and his story had a couple holes in it, I must admit."

Neither teen was particularly surprised to hear such a thing, especially with their own experiences with the young Larstud boy and his lackeys. Honestly both of them would have been far more surprised if it had been a well put-together story for why they had been attempting to harass the three of them.

"Though Callum seemed a little intimidated with Glenn in the same room as him, a mistake on my part, so a couple parts of the story had been left out. Do you two mind if I ask you to fill in the gaps?"

Both teens blinked owlishly for a moment before their composure caught back up to them and they began to explain, each of them going over the events from their own point of view and only really butting in when something happened that the other hadn't been paying too much attention to.

The look that Olivia gave him when he admitted that he had begun setting up his counter before Glenn had even moved had been a rather good bit of levity for the blue-haired teen amidst all of it. He almost wished he had something to keep hold onto the sight, like a memory bloom or an artist.

"Wait, you knew that Glenn would try and block the pommel of your blade if you took a swing at his crony?" Olivia asked, a gleam in her eye that Alec couldn't name, and quite honestly didn't want to.

"It's what he did the last time that I tried." Alec responded with a small shrug, taking a quick half-second to enjoy the slight jerk of Xyn's head as he tried to take another sip of his drink and nearly spit some of it back into his mug, "Though that time I didn't know it was coming and had to unsheathe my blade and swing. It was a bit easier this time."

"Yes, it certainly looked like a well-timed counter from my perspective." Xyn praised Alec with a thin smile on his face, "I could definitely see the basics of glancing scale in that counter, using his palm strike on your pommel to increase the speed and force of your blades rotation."

"So that's what happened." Olivia muttered, crossing her arms and tapping her foot slowly, "I was so busy with my own strike that I didn't have time to realize what else had happened before the headmaster took our blades."

"Makes sense. I could tell that you'd tried to attack Ryx but I had no idea you'd done so until after he took our blades as well." Alec shrugged, only to falter slightly as a snort of amusement left Olivia.

"Pardon. Ryx?"

"The twin that you were facing? I…don't actually know their names. So, I've just been calling them Lex and Ryx. For…left and right."

The guffaw that left Olivia was almost magical in its own right, though the fit of giggles that she fell into after that unfortunately beat it out. Since it was something that he hadn't seen since that one fateful night where they had settled their differences. Based on the wide-eyed, astonished, look from the headmaster, it looked like he hadn't ever seen something like this either, nor even expected it from the pearlescent-haired girl.

"You're a lot more caustic in that mind of yours than you let most people see, aren't you, Dius?"

"If that's what you want to call it, sure." Alec shrugged, trying to suppress the slight burn of embarrassment that tried to flash across his cheeks.

"Well, if you've finished discussing exactly how rude Alec can be within the very private confines of his own mind," Xyn began, rolling his eyes dramatically to try and get a laugh out of them both and only getting flat looks in return, "I did actually have a question for the both of you separate to the altercation earlier."

"Hm?" Alec tilted his head minutely to the left once more.

"And that would be?" Olivia raised an eyebrow as she crossed her arms again.

"In five days, we'll be running a special training seminar here in the academy with a guest from outside. For reference, the fliers for this are going out later today so don't say anything about it outside of this office until you see them, ok?"

Both teens nodded with curious looks, clearly wondering where this line of conversation was going and what exactly his question would be. The idea of a seminar being held by someone from outside the academy was a pretty novel one, and thus something of interest for the two young fighters.

"It will be a good opportunity to learn for anyone involved, not that I'll tell you why." He grinned and winked at them, getting two flat looks in return, "But my question was if you two are planning on being in the academy during that day?"

"I have nothing specific planned for that day. I can totally go to the seminar." Alec nodded easily.

"I can come to the seminar as well; I would have just gone to classes as usual or done a quest and I can move them around or just not do them for a day." Olivia shrugged.

Both of his students were free, both of them were interested in the seminar now as well, everything was lining up perfectly.

The stage was set, now it was just time for the show to commence. Xyn couldn't wait to see what kind of play came out the other side.