It stung, being defeated so easily. It stung a lot. And not being able to land a single blow on his opponent just made the loss even worse for Lucas.

  Sure, he’d lost to Magnus every single time he’d sparred with the older man over the last few days, but that was different. With Magnus, the man was many years older than him and had a vast amount of experience that Lucas just didn’t have. But with Sasha, the girl looked like she was around the same age as himself and Fay, if not a bit younger.

  Of course, some part of Lucas knew that it was unlikely that he ever would have won the fight in the first place. Even if Sasha was younger than him, she likely had some level of training like Fay did. And it was pretty easy to guess that the time she’d spent training was likely more than just a few days.

  Lucas was torn away from his spiraling thoughts as a hand appeared before his face. Looking up, he saw Sasha leaning over and offering him a hand. That challenging grin was gone, replaced by a small, confident smirk.

  “Need a hand?”

  Lucas was tempted to smack the offered hand away, but that would just make him a sore loser. So, he took Sasha’s hand, letting the smaller girl haul him up to his feet with a grunt of effort. It was another sign of how much stronger the brunette was than she looked.

  “No hard feelings, right?” She asked, repeating her earlier words.

  Lucas just sighed. “Yeah. No hard feelings.”

  With the fighting all over, Magnus wasn’t able to hold Fay back any longer and the blonde rushed over to check on the two, mainly Lucas.

  “Lucas! Are you ok?” She asked, rapidly glancing over Lucas’ body and patting at his arms to check on him. Though when she saw he wasn’t bleeding, just covered in welts and growing bruises, she turned her attention to Sasha. “And you didn’t have to be that harsh with him! He’s only been training for a few days.”

  “Fay, it’s ok,” He spoke up. As fun as it was watching Fay berating her best friend for beating him up, Lucas knew better. “I asked for this. I knew what would happen.”

  And he did. Deep down Lucas knew he wouldn’t have won the fight with Sasha, not with how confident she had been and how good she was with the blade. But he’d wanted to try, and he’d let his desire to try and wipe that grin off her face override his better judgment. And now he was paying the price for that.

  Looking down at his arms, Lucas could already see the bruises forming all over them. He’d taken a lot of blows from Sasha in the later half of the fight, and all of them were going to leave some marks. Tentatively, he reached down and pressed a hand to his side where he’d taken a hard blow and hissed at the spark of pain from just a small touch. Without a doubt, Sasha’s first blow had left a good bruise.

  With the adrenaline from the fight fading, Lucas was beginning to realize just how much he was hurting. Dulled blades didn’t make the end result hurt any less. Those blades were still solid metal and Lucas was left suffering as every movement aggravated some bruise or injury from the fight.

  Despite his attempts to stop a fight, Sasha and Fay were soon bickering between themselves, and Lucas was left not knowing what to do.

  “You didn’t do that bad, kid,” Magnus’ hand landed on Lucas’ shoulder, just managing to avoid some bruises on his upper arm. The teen still groaned as his tired body tensed at the touch. “You were never going to beat Sasha like this, not without a lot more training.”

  Looking up at the man, Lucas saw him watching the two girls arguing with a grin on his face. When he noticed the concerned look that Lucas was shooting at the pair, he chuckled a bit.

  “Don’t worry about them, those two will argue all the time.” Magnus explained. “But like I was saying, you were never going to win that fight against her. Sasha has been working hard to learn how to fight for years now. Toss in her magic as well, and there wasn’t much chance of you winning when she got serious.”

  “Her magic?” Lucas asked, curious about what he’d seen. At times during the fight, Sasha had seemed to close gaps between them far faster than he thought she should have been able to. “Does she have Speed magic too, like Fay?”

  “No, no,” Magnus laughed. “Though that probably would have been fitting with how close those two are. No, Sasha has an affinity for Space magic.”

  Suddenly, the pieces fit together in Lucas’ mind, and he recalled a small bit of information that Fay had hinted at before. Back when they had visited the post office, Fay had mentioned that a friend of hers had a Space affinity. She’d even said that it was Sasha. But Lucas had entirely forgotten about it in the heat of the moment.

  “Oh.”

  It explained how Sasha had closed those gaps in such a short time. Why bother moving when she could just teleport closer?

  Feeling pressure against his legs, Lucas looked down to see his familiar looking back up at him, the little fox pressing up against his legs as she pawed at his pants.

  “See,” He mumbled to the fox, bending down to pick Dusk up and return her back to her favorite spot draped across his shoulders. He made sure to hide his wince of pain as his bruised arms protested being used. “I told you it was a good idea not to stay.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  When Dusk simply licked at his cheek and nuzzled against him, Lucas couldn’t help but smile, even with the soreness and pain he was enduring.

  “I want to beat her,” Lucas said suddenly. Looking up at Magnus, he spotted the man’s surprised expression. “I want to get better so that I can beat her before I leave. Do you think I can get to that level?”

  There was some concern in Magnus’ gaze as he looked down at the teen, but there was also a lot of respect. He could see how determined Lucas was to do what he was asking, but he still had to warn the young man.

  “It would take a lot of work, Lucas. She has years of experience and you have next to none. If you really want to try and beat her before you leave, I can teach you more. But it’ll hurt and it won’t be easy. I won’t be holding back when we spar anymore, and I won’t be passive either. I’m going to be attacking you more, and you will finish each and every night more beaten, battered, and bruised than today.”

  The man standing before Lucas wasn’t the warm, playful father anymore. Instead, he saw the grizzled hunter that Fay had told him about that had been fighting for years. Magnus was serious, but Lucas was too.

  “So, do you think you can handle that?” The man asked.

  “Bring it on.”

  Those three words held every ounce of Lucas’ determination and drive. He had a month in this amazing world, and he was determined to learn everything that he could. The creatures that called the magical world home, how to fight, how to use magic, Lucas intended to learn as much as he could. And if he had to suffer some pain to do it, so be it.

  “Good. We’ll start tonight after dinner,” Magnus replied, laughing when he saw Lucas’ shocked face. “I told you I wouldn’t be going easy on you, Lucas. Just because you’re bruised doesn’t mean you get a pass tonight.”

  His heart sank and Lucas wondered if, perhaps, he might have made a mistake as the older man grinned down at him with a smile that promised pain. But it would all be worth it, as long as he endured.

  Or at least, he hoped so.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Fay and Sasha’s argument was only interrupted by Lissa calling the group inside for dinner. The older blonde even invited Sasha for dinner as well, something that the brunette seemed eager to agree to.

  As Fay and Magnus headed inside to eat, Lucas was stopped when he felt a hand grab his and tug him back. When he looked back, he saw Sasha standing behind him, gripping his hand.

  “Hey, wait up for a second. I need to say something real quick, ok?” She asked.

  Ignoring the soft growling coming from the fox on his shoulder, Lucas grinned. “You just did, but sure.”

  That got a laugh out of the brunette, and she lightly shoved Lucas. “Wise ass.”

  “Guilty as charged,” He joked, hiding a flinch as the brunette managed to hit one of his many bruises. “What did you need?” Lucas asked, reaching up to scratch under Dusk’s chin to get the fox to calm down.

  “I wanted to apologize for, well…” She looked over Lucas’ body and gestured to the visible bruises on his arms. “All this. I got a bit protective and went a bit too hard on you before.”

  Lucas was baffled. “Protective? About what?”

  “Fay,” Sasha answered. “She’s my best friend and she’s a good person, the best I know. So, when some new guy shows up and Fay won’t shut up about him, I wanted to see how he measured up. I wanted to see if this guy was good enough to hang out with my best friend. Though, I kinda realized how horrible that sounds now.”

  “A little bit, yeah,” He agreed.

  “Not helping,” Sasha grumbled. “So, I’m sorry about that. I should’ve gone easier on you and I kinda just took my frustrations out on you when you agreed to fight.”

  “So, what? You were jealous of me hanging out with Fay and wanted to fight me?” Lucas asked, trying to clarify things.

  “No! I wasn’t jealous or anything. I just… Fay is my only real friend here. And the idea of her hanging out all the time with somebody else just rubbed me the wrong way for a bit,” She complained.

  Lucas just gave the girl a blank look, staring her down until Sasha looked away.

  “Pretty sure that’s called ‘being jealous’,” He pointed out.

  “Shut up!” Sasha snapped back, though her words lacked any real heat. “I just wanted to apologize. I promise it won’t happen again. Fay would probably kick my ass if it did.”

  Lucas felt bad. He’d just thought that Sasha had been smug, cocky, and arrogant going into the fight. But after hearing her reasoning, it was pretty clear that she was just worried about her friendship with Fay.

  “Apology accepted. And don’t worry about it. You gave me a pretty good reason to get even better. Now you can’t complain when I kick your ass next time.”

  For a second, Sasha looked baffled, but then she started to giggle, before doubling over laughing.

  “You’re pretty weird, you know that,” She commented with a grin. “Most people would be pretty mad at me for beating them up for no reason. But here you are wanting to come back for more.”

  “I’ve been told I’m pretty stubborn,” Lucas joked, just making Sasha laugh even more.

  “Alright, Mr. Stubborn. I’ll kick your ass again the next time you want to fight me, too,” She shot back.

  “What are friends for, if not beating each other up?” Lucas teased.

  That made Sasha’s laughter stop, and she looked at the dark-haired teen with shock written on her face.

  “Friends? You’d think of me as a friend? Even after I beat you up?”

  “I’d like to try,” Lucas replied. “I get how you feel; I didn’t really have many friends back home. We’re both friends with Fay, so we can at least try to be friends as well, right?”

  The answer seemed to genuinely stun Sasha, before the brunette just silently nodded with a small smile on her lips.

  “Good. Now come on, if we wait much longer, Fay will probably eat all our food,” Lucas prodded.

  “Shit, you’re right! Let’s go!”

  Sasha grabbed Lucas’ hand and pulled him towards the house. Lucas couldn’t help but smile just a bit when he heard the girl giggling as she pulled him along.

  He’d been lonely before, so he knew how it felt. He and Sasha may have started out a bit rough, but that didn’t mean they had to be enemies. And as he and Sasha joined the Stella family at the table, something his mother taught him echoed in his mind.

  “You can never have too many friends, Lucas.”

  Seeing Sasha relaxed and joking with both him and Fay, Lucas had to agree. His mother was right, in the end. It was better to have more friends, anyway.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  You can find it here if you want to check it out. Those who join can read a full 8 chapters ahead.