Arthur and Tess walked over and joined the others by the fire, where Claire appeared to be cooking something in a pot hung just over the fire.
"Well you two look like a happy couple," Claire observed as they joined them holding hands. "I take it you two are ok now?"
Once seated Tess leaned her head on Arthur's shoulder and smiled.
"Yeah we're good," Arthur replied.
"Well clearly not too good, you two look way too put together to have just Oww!," Adam started, before Durden punched him in the back of the head. "What was that for?"
"Stopping you before you went too far," Durden replied.
"Ok, well anyway. Arthur, Sylvie said you missed a few meals today, so here," Claire said as she handed him a wooden bowl and spoon.
The contents appeared to look like chicken noodle soup, as it had noodles, vegetables, and some kind of white meat, but only thicker looking, and gelatinous. Arthur took a spoon full and closed his eyes as the food entered his mouth. He pulled out the spoon and looked down at the contents.
"Yeah, Claire's not exactly known for her...cooking," Theo started before Arthur raised the bowl to his mouth and leaned back as he used the spoon to push it all into his mouth.
Upon swallowing the last of it Arthur held out his bowl. "Could I have some more please?"
"Sure," Claire replied excitedly as she took the bowel and scooped more into it.
As this happened Arthur noticed everyone other than the twin horns members staring at him. "What?"
"Did you actually like that?" Thomas asked.
"Claire can't cook worth a damn. Her food is barely edible," Theo explained, resulting in Claire jabbing him in his side below his ribs. "Gahh!"
"Don't listen to them, eat all that you want," Claire replied with a smile as she handed Arthur his bowl, and her free hand rested on the pommel of her sword.
"To be honest, all I've eaten since I left was whatever I hunted or found, and if it was something I found like fruit from a tree or bush, I usually had to kill some beast for it. So pretty much unseasoned roasted meat has been the main part of my diet," Arthur explained, before pouring the gelatinous food down his throat again. "So in comparison, this is gourmet fine dining to me right now."
"Oh, so the only reason you like Claire's food is because you haven't had a decent meal to compare it to in so long," Jerry teased.
Without looking Claire shot a small fireball at Jerry, who allowed himself to fall backwards, narrowly dodging the attack.
"So," Arthur said as he handed his bowl over for a third serving. "We've only been talking about me, but what about the rest of you, what have you all been doing since I left? The Asura have only been filling me in on the state of the war, so I know about The Wall, and the clearing of the dungeons, but they didn't bother telling me about my friends and family."
"Well," Helen said to start things off. "We've been doing almost everything. Defending The Wall, scouting and clearing dungeons, tracking Alacryan troop movements." She then leaned over and nudged Jasmine beside her. "Jasmine's the one who's been really doing interesting stuff."
"Oh yeah? Whatever it was it must have been pretty intense, I can see you're almost to mid silver," Arthur replied as he looked to his former mentor, bodyguard, friend, and surrogate big sister.
"I became Pasta Bloom's disciple," Jasmine replied as a rare faint smile formed.
"You mean the old retired lance that runs a pub out in the beast glades?" Arthur questioned to make sure they were talking about the same person.
"That's him. He came out of retirement and is now in command of all operations in the beast glades," Jasmine replied.
"Last time I spoke with him he seemed to hold a grudge against the Glayders, so I'm surprised he chose to come back. Anyway, how did you become his disciple?" Claire handed Arthur another full bowl of food.
"It turns out that we're family. His sister was my grandmother," Jasmine answered.
"Oh wow," Arthur replied with his eyes widening. "Who would have guessed." He then took another bite of the food Claire made, and was now starting to understand what Theo and the others were saying about her cooking, and placed the bowl on the ground. "What about the rest of you?"
"Well, did you hear about how Director Goodsky was an Alacryan spy?" Claire asked.
"Former spy," Tess clarified in defense of her former master. "They cast some spell on her to keep her from telling us anything, so instead she advised the council and pushed the students at the academy to try and prepare us all for when Alacrya came."
"Actually I heard all of that. I also heard that Alder was able to undo part of the spell that was keeping her from telling us anything. Apparently she revealed a lot of vital information that was used to help prepare Dicathens defenses for this war, before she lapsed into a coma," Arthur added, supporting Tess' argument in Goodsky's defense, and trying to show the importance of her sacrifice.
"Right" Claire agreed, sounding a bit uncomfortable. "Anyway, when she left the school closed down. Everyone from the Student Council and Disciplinary Committee kept in touch as everything started happening. I personally volunteered for this assignment as soon as I heard about it," Claire then gestured to Theo. "For some reason he decided to follow me."
"Somebody needed to make sure you didn't push yourself too hard," Theo replied, resulting in Claire playfully hitting him in the stomach.
"I swear he's like a lost puppy following me. I was given my own team right away, and he even requested to be assigned to my team, even though he was offered his own," Claire finished, as Theo blushed slightly and looked away.
"Well it was the same for me, except it took longer to convince my family to allow it," Tess stated.
"That must have been hard for Gramps to let you go," Arthur commented with a chuckle.
"I literally had to fight him so I could go."
"You said everyone kept in touch, where's everyone else?" Arthur asked, wanting to know his friends were all ok.
"Let's see," Claire looked up as she remembered everyone and where they were. "Curtis and Lilia are working for her dad. He was put in charge of the supply lines for the war, and they're guarding the convoys going to The Wall along with other groups of adventurers."
"Kathyln's been assigned to defend The Wall since it was completed. And because of how big Llyr has gotten, she's also been doing aerial scouting missions and has been a courier between the wall and the floating castle," Tess chimed in.
"Last I heard Feyrith was assigned to the unit defending Elenoir," Claire stated with some uncertainty.
"Actually he was recently given his own team to patrol within Elshire forest. My gra," Tess paused and rephrased. "The commander told me that Alacryan scouts have been seen trying to map a route through the forest, so the patrol teams are pretty important."
"Wow, looks like everyone's been busy with the war," Arthur commented, sounding proud of his friends. "What about Elijah, what's he been up to."
There was an immediate shift in the mood. Arthur could tell something was wrong, Theo hung his head, while both Claire and Tess both looked uncomfortable, like they wanted to avoid this question at all costs.
"What happened?" Arthur asked with a serious tone.
"Umm, like us, he joined the adventurers to clear dungeons," Claire started off. "Since he was already an A ranked adventure, he was even given his own team." Claire started to choke, Theo put a hand on her back as a form of comfort.
Arthur looked to Tess to see she was in no better shape.
"From what we were told, Elijah was leading his team to try and find the dungeon boss den, but they went missing," Theo forced out.
"What do you mean missing? People don't just go missing?" Arthur was starting to panic, everyone could feel a pressure emanating from him. Tess took his hand, and as he looked he realized the pressure from his core was making it harder for her and everyone else to breath. "Sorry." Arthur replied as he took his core back under control.
"It's ok," Tess reassured him.
"What they're trying to say is that he was captured by the Alacryans," Adam told him, his face contorted into a combination of anger, hate, and fear.
"The bodies of his teammates were found a few days later. They were clearly tortured," Theo finished.
"And even though his body wasn't found, he's probably dead too," Arthur finished. Several of them nodded in agreement.
With Windsom's advice Arthur wondered if he knew about Elijah, but ultimately he dismissed that idea, since to the Asura the life of one lesser wasn't very important. Arthur began breathing deep to keep calm. In his previous life when he went to war there was no one to worry about, but now he had friends and family, he knew he had to protect as many of them as he could.
"Ok then. That means I need to wipe out an entire battalion of Alacryan's as retribution," Arthur stated.
"That's the spirit, kill them all," Adam cheered, for the first time he and Arthur were on the same page. No one did anything to him as normal when he opened his mouth, since they all agreed.
The group remained silent, the happy mood created by Arthur's return washed away by the reality of this war. They had lost a friend, and were probably going to lose more before it was all over. They didn't even notice as the rest of the unit began arriving.
Soon Theo stood up. "Ok enough of this. Arthur get up and come with me."
"Why?"
"I don't know about you, but ever since this war started, every time I felt down, beating the shit out of something had made me feel better."
"Are you volunteering to be my punching bag?" There were a few light laughs as they pictured the idea.
"I'd rather you be mine right now," Theo slipped one of his gauntlets on and began tightening it. "since you disobeyed your restriction," he gave the last strap on his gauntlet a good tug. "You now need to face your consequences."
"What are you talking about?" Arthur asked with his head tilted.
Claire was looking confused, but was soon hit with a realization as to what Theo was talking about.
"Remember when you reached the light silver stage?" Theo slipped on his other gauntlet and began tightening it. "I told you you were banned from getting any stronger till one of us caught up to you." Theo gave a strong tug on the last strap as he looked at Arthur with an intense gaze. "Well you got stronger, and none of us caught up to you." Theo smiled as he crossed his arms and stood a little taller. "But since it was to prepare for this war, I'll let you off easy."
"How benevolent of you," Arthur mocked with an amused tone as he stood up. "And what shall my consequence be?"
"You have to duel me!"
"Theo, I can see that you're at the mid yellow stage, but I'm at the white stage. I'm not sure this will be as effective as you think," Arthur replied with a smirk.
"Maybe, but at least I'll be able to see how far off from you I am, and you can see you aren't the only one to get stronger."
————————————————————————
Arthur and Theo were standing within a makeshift ring that was only raised a foot above the ground. Both Arthur and Theo were stretching before their duel, as most of the other adventurers were gathering around to see how strong Arthur really was. Darvus looked impatient, he wanted to face off against Arthur to show he wasn't as strong as everyone thought. His only comfort was that he knew Theo was stronger than him. People were placing bets on the winner, betting things like beast cores or harder to get food items they had stashed, but also simple gold. The bets were pretty much down the middle, Theo was known to be one of the stronger augmentors in the unit, but Arthur was able to clear the boss den alone.
"So how in the hell did this happen?" The unit Captain asked Tess and Claire as he approached from behind.
"Arthur learned about one of our friends that died. I guess Theo wanted to help them both blow off some steam," Claire answered.
"As long as Arthur doesn't hurt him too bad," The captain replied.
"So you believe that Art cleared the boss den?" Tess asked with a satisfied grin, and Sylvie was in her arms with the same expression.
The captain shook his head. "It's the only explanation that makes any sense right now. We didn't find a single living beast." He then pulled out a yellow beast core. "This was the only core we even managed to find."
Sylvie immediately locked eyes on the core that was about the size of her head, then up at the captain. He noticed this then sighed in resignation and handed it to her.
"Kyuu," Sylvie replied in thanks as she held the core in her paws.
They then looked up to Arthur and Theo as Theo took a fighting stance, and Arthur just stood there looking relaxed.
CRUNCH
The three of them looked back down to Sylvie upon hearing that, only to see the core was gone and Sylvie was licking her paws.
"How did she..." the Captain questioned, not understanding how she managed to even eat the core in the first place.
"I've learned to stop questioning the how with these two a long time ago," Tess replied then snuggled Sylvie.
—————————————————————
"So how do you want to decide this match?" Theo asked as he took a fighting stance.
"How about the first one to get knocked onto their back loses," Arthur replied as he stood there casually with his hands by his side.
"Works for me. Aren't you going to get into a fighting stance or draw your sword?"
"No I'm fine like this."
For the average opponent to hear this they would have felt that Arthur was belittling them, Theo however knew different. Due to his experience with Arthur in the past, he knew that even like this Arthur was not an opponent to be taken lightly.
Theo used his gravity magic to lighten himself and his immediate area, then took off after Arthur. Even though Arthur didn't need to, he kept his distance, bringing up rocks and flinging them at Theo to test his range.
"Hmm, looks like about a six foot radius, same as at Xyrus. Maybe the range is something hard for gravity mages to overcome," Arthur thought to himself.
Theo shot one of Arthur's rocks right back at him. Arthur began to jump to the side to dodge. When he did, Theo's range suddenly doubled, and Arthur over shot, landing himself right into the path of another rock. Instead of dodging Arthur swung one of his arms and shattered the rock.
"You didn't think I didn't know what you were doing did you?" Theo commented as he stood tall facing Arthur. "I remember our first duel. Just like then you were gauging my range."
"And here I thought you just got stronger," Arthur replied with a shrug. "I underestimated you, sorry about that. It won't happen again."
Theo charged in again, but Arthur didn't move. Theo then began delivering a flurry of punches, but Arthur just swatted them away with his right index and middle fingers. After a few failed attacks Arthur finally took the offensive and delivered an open palm strike to Theo's stomach. Even though Arthur held back considerably, Theo was knocked back several feet feeling as though the wind was knocked out of him.
Theo looked to the ground as he tried to catch his breath. When he looked up he saw Arthur holding one of his gauntlets. In disbelief he looked at his hands to see that his left gauntlet was missing, and most of the straps were undone on his right.
"How in the hell did you do that?" Theo asked in shock.
Arthur just smiled back before tossing over the gauntlet. Theo caught it and quickly resecured both, as he decided to go all out. Finally ready, Theo lowered the gravity as he took off at his top speed, before jumping up in the air.
"Try ten times normal gravity!" Theo raised his fists over his head as he closed in and magnified the gravity by ten fold. "DEVASTATING IMPACT!"
Theo brought his fists down together as Arthur raised his left hand, redirecting the attack to strike the ground beside him. Due to the gravity the dust stirred up was minimal, even though Theo's attack created a fairly large crater. It took a moment for everyone to realize that Arthur was actually levitating at ground level above the crater so he didn't fall in.
"That was really good, you've definitely improved a lot in these last two years," Arthur praised. "But it looks like you're done. That attack clearly is pretty draining."
Theo was standing back up, breathing heavily as sweet poured down his face.
"Do you just want to yield, or do I still need to knock you down?" Arthur asked.
"Screw you," Theo replied then chuckled a bit. "I'm done, there no way I could knock you down now." Theo held out his hand to Arthur. "Good match." Arthur took his hand and they shook, signaling the end of their duel.
Several cheered while others groaned depending on how they bet.
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Everyone turned to the clapping that rang over everyone else. The captain's eyes widened as he and everyone else took a knee.
"WE SALUTE YOU COMMANDER VIRION!"