[Xander – 12 years]

  "Yes, Xander?" Trey asks as I fidget nervously, and when I still don't know how to get the words out, he looks over at me. "What's wrong?"

  I've come back downstairs after brushing my teeth and there's something I really want to ask, but this feels bad. It's contradictory to what I said before and changing my mind isn't good. It's never good. It's bad. It's bad. It's bad.

  "I-I know the c-classes are d-done for the s-s-summer b-but-"

  "But you still wanted to do the fitness stuff still?" Trey asks.

  "Y-yeah," I nod. "B-but s-since C-Coach-"

  "Xander," Trey interrupts me, his voice gentle. "We did tell the coach that Friday was the last day for the summer lessons, so calling him now would not be that fair to him. That said, I did somewhat expect for you to want to do the fitness stuff. The lessons became part of your routine, and it's hard for you to shift from them, even if you've had some notice. You also do want to keep getting into better shape."

  "Yeah," I lift up my shirt. "Look, you can kind of see my abs now. Well, you could before, but they're even more clear after this past week. They're not as good as Sig's yet, but they might get there if I keep exercising."

  I'm not healthy until they're fully defined, not just partially. So they don't have to be as good as Sig's for me to be healthy, but they're not quite there yet. Maybe another two weeks of doing fitness sessions, then I'll just have to keep exercising to make sure I stay healthy.

  "Put your shirt down, Xander," he chuckles. "And for martial arts and fitness, you can still train with the guards if you want. It would be within their range of duties in ensuring me and my household are protected, as it's making sure you can fight if someone attacks you.

  "For the swimming," he says. "I took this week off. If you'd like, I can swim with you? It doesn't have to be just laps or practice – you can play games to work on your swimming skills, too. Would you be comfortable with me joining you in the pool? We can ask someone else to join us as well."

  Just Trey and me? I'm not so sure about being alone with an adult in the pool, even if I put the unitard swimsuit on under my trunks. But he let me sleep in his bed when I got super scared from the thunderstorm and didn't do anything bad to me. That means he won't, I'm pretty sure.

  I really want to say "no" to this.

  "It can be just the two of us," I tell him.

  "Alright," he says. "Now for another question… would you be okay with the man I've asked to be your fitness instructor during the school year to start early and do the lessons instead? I already let him know you might be stuck on the schedule and want to keep going with the fitness parts, even if you'd be more than willing to go through the stress of not having the other classes."

  "You did that?"

  "I did," he nods. "And he said he's more than willing."

  "Oh," I say. "Um… but it wouldn't be today, right?"

  "Are you okay with meeting him to continue your fitness sessions rather than waiting until the start of the school year?"

  "Y-yeah."

  "I figured," Trey smiles. "I told him that might be the case. Let's go to the pool."

  There's no one in the pool when I arrive, but after I change into my swim lessons trunks and reenter the swimming room, there's someone else in there with Trey. They're both standing at the deep end of the pool, the scariest end. Outside of the pool, not in it.

  The new instructor is a young man who looks to be in his late teens, maybe early twenties. He has platinum-blond hair and blue-grey-green eyes, sort of like mine, and a golden, summer tan. The only thing he's wearing is a pair of dark green board shorts, and his body is lean but toned, with lots of dense muscle, but not big and bulky. It's like Sig, Carter, and Tate. Lean but defined and… whoa.

  Will I be able to have a body like that when I'm all grown up?

  "Xander," Trey says. "This is Adam King, and he owns and runs a martial arts studio in Lakeview. From my understanding he's one of your relatives, though I'm not quite sure where on the family tree."

  "Oh!" I realize. "Yeah, we're cousins. Our dads were… twins? Triplets?"

  "Triplets," Adam says. "If your dad was one of my dads' set, then they would've been triplets. My dad was the eldest."

  "I don't know what my dad was," I tell him. "He died before I was born."

  "That's fine," he says. "I have a question – are you the Xander that visits the Wolf's Dragon? Emily mentioned that one of her customers had revealed he was my cousin."

  "Yeah," I nod. "Good luck with the babies."

  "Babies?" Trey asks.

  "Yeah," I nod. "Emily's his fiancee and she's pregnant with triplets. He's got quite awhile before they'll be born, but I heard it's good to say 'good luck' with babies to people you care about. While I don't know Adam, I do like Emily. I'll do the same when Katie gets pregnant."

  "I'm not dating Katie, Xander," Trey groans.

  "Yet," I say. "You're not dating her yet. I'm still not sure why, since you two do love each other."

  "Why don't we get started on the swimming session?" Adam suggests.

  "Excellent idea," Trey says. "Xander, do you want me to stay here, or to send Roderick in?"

  I'd rather not be alone with Adam since I just met him, but he's Emily's fiance so he can't be that bad. And Greyson thinks he's cool. And I'm powerful enough to get rid of him if he tries anything.

  "Um… I think I can try it with just us," I tell him.

  "Alright," Trey says. "Are you fine with me watching from the side?"

  Oh, that's better.

  "Yeah."

  Trey heads over to the seating area while I fidget in front of Adam.

  "I want to start by seeing your swimming skills," Adam tells me. "But Trey says you're a bit scared of water, so I want to start with getting you in the water. And yes, I know you can do it – but it usually either involves running with your eyes closed while screaming or by teleporting in. We'll try it a little bit differently. Stay right there."

  I stay here as Adam steps into the pool. He just… walks up to the edge, takes a step forward, and lets himself drop in. After sinking down, Adam surfaces again, then swims forward a bit before stopping and turning to face me, treading water there.

  "Alright," he says. "Do you ever go swimming with your friends out in the woods or ruins? I know my little brother does."

  "Yeah," I answer. "But no skinny dipping."

  Adam snorts.

  "Matt claims that, too," he says. "But I only believe him about half the time. Though from what I understand of what Trey told me, you wouldn't be comfortable enough for it. I was surprised you weren't wearing the unitard swimsuit, with it being our first time meeting. If you get uncomfortable at all during this and want to change into it, you're more than welcome to, okay? I won't be offended – I know everyone has different levels of comfort."

  "Okay," I nod.

  "When you go swimming in the ponds with your friends," he says. "How do you get in the water? Do you teleport in?"

  "Um…" I try to think. "On the Sunday before yesterday, I went swimming and I ran and jumped in, but squealed 'cause it was scary."

  "Okay," he says. "I'm going to do something. Wait right there, okay?"

  "Okay."

  Adam sinks down into the water until he's sitting on the floor of the pool. Just… sitting there. Far too long. That's too long. There's no way he can still be breathing there. Isn't he supposed to be a good swimmer? Isn't that why Trey picked him as my new teacher? There's no way he can be if he's down there that long, he's drowned!

  He's not moving! Nnnngh! I can't pull him up! I'm too weak! Why's he waving at me? He's drowned! You're not supposed to wave when you're drowned!

  Crap, I need air now! I swim back up and take in some breaths and as I do, Adam comes back to the surface. He's got a big grin on his face.

  "You're not dead…"

  "No," he chuckles. "I'm not."

  "That's very good," I tell him. "You weren't moving, and were under for so long, and then I couldn't pull you up!"

  "I used a small bit of weight-enhancing magic to weigh me down enough you couldn't," he tells me. "And look at you, Xander – you got into the water without panicking for yourself, without screaming or squealing, or needing to teleport. You ran in and swam down to rescue me when you thought I was in danger."

  "But you were!"

  "Xander," he smiles. "I know multiple spells which make it possible to remain underwater a long time. One of them directly exchanges the waste air in my lungs with good air, preventing me from needing to come back up for more air. That's the one I was using then – but I also know a spell which lets you breathe water, just like fish do."

  "Fish breathe water?"

  "More accurately," he says. "They absorb the dissolved oxygen gas in water. That spell requires you to breathe in water, though, and can be uncomfortable for most people to learn. And see? You're in the water without any issues."

  I am, aren't I?

  "That was still really scary…"

  "Just a different kind of scary," he smiles. "You feel comfortable now though, don't you?"

  Very, very, very surprisingly comfortable.

  "Yeah."

  "Alright," he says. "Let's move down to the shallow end. Then, I want you to do a freestyle swim to the deep end and back twice."

  After that swim, Adam has me do two laps of a breaststroke, then two of a backstroke, then two of a butterfly. Then he has me tread water for two minutes.

  "That's it for the tests," he tells me. "It looks like you've gotten some good habits down since beginning to learn. Let's play some games now."

  Adam changes which game we play every fifteen minutes until the end of the swimming session and once it's finally over, I'm exhausted. I just want to collapse in bed and fall asleep now. That's normal after my swimming and other fitness lessons, though, so I'm not going to.

  Or maybe I will, since I don't have another lesson right after.

  "Make sure to eat some protein soon," Adam tells me as I get out of the pool. "It'll help your body after all that moving around."

  "I will," I tell him. "And. Um. Thanks for agreeing to be my new fitness instructor. You're really nice."

  "I do my best," he smiles. "And you don't have to worry about me inviting Matt to join us ever, Emily's already mentioned you're deliberately avoiding meeting him because his energy levels make you scared."

  That's a huge relief.

  "Thank you."

  "That said," he smiles gently. "He's a pretty good kid, even if a bit dorky and hyperactive. He had social anxiety until a couple of years ago, when he was entering the seventh grade. Then he met the boys and girl he hangs out with now and opened up a lot. Even when he doesn't understand something, he does his best to help if he sees someone he cares about in trouble.

  "As an example," he chuckles. "I'm sitting on the couch reviewing some notes one night when he suddenly charges into the room, shirt on backwards, and is tugging on his sneakers. I try to ask him what he's doing, but all he says is 'no time for talking, there's an emergency!' as he grabbed my wallet and left. When I finally found out what happened, I just thought 'yeah, that sounds like Matt'."

  "What happened?" I ask.

  "The girl he hangs out with," he says. "Lives a few doors down from us. She had her first period and it was extremely painful for her, and none of her female relatives were around at the time, her mother included. In her panicked and pained state, she just thought of telling Matt she didn't know what to do rather than call for her father, who was just down the hall from the bathroom she'd locked herself in.

  "Matt," he chuckles again. "The goofball that he is, told her he'd take care of it… then got ready to go, grabbed my wallet, and left. Went to the nearest store and bought one of every item on the shelf with the feminine hygiene products they had, along with one of every chocolate they had.

  "Then he went to her place," he continues. "And her dad was really confused but Matt wasn't exactly focused on explaining things and just slipped in with his bags and went to the bathroom, and his friend let him in. Matt climbed into the bathtub and pulled the curtains closed, then dumped everything out. He then opened up a box and tossed her the stuff from it, then read her the directions from the box. That way, she didn't have to worry about figuring out what to do, she could just know what to do."

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  He snorts.

  "Her dad told me that he was concerned at first," he says. "But when he heard what Matt was saying, he found it a little amusing because Matt was also panicking. Not from embarrassment or anything, just because his friend was."

  "That sounds like a really nice thing for him to do," I say.

  "It was," Adam says. "And after, they learned that her mother had meant to already talk with her about what to do for it, but had gotten caught-up with a family emergency at the time she'd meant to and forgot, then thought she had. There were already necessary products in her bathroom, just in a drawer she never used, so she never saw them."

  "He really bought one of everything?" I ask. "Instead of just one of each?"

  "He wasn't sure if there was a difference," Adam shrugs. "So he made sure to be thorough. That's the sort of guy Matt is – he does his best to help his friends and when he's not sure, he makes sure to be thorough."

  "Adam," Trey says. "At least in some stores, that's the same aisle they have pregnancy tests, lube, and condoms."

  "Yeaaaah… also dildos and massagers," Adam says. "The clerk apparently tried to refuse, but facing a panicking tween who's talking about an emergency and trying to make sure he's got everything to deal with it overwhelmed her. Matt can very easily overwhelm someone to the point they just do the thing unless there's something stopping them – and nothing had an age lock on it. And when he's panicking, that effect is definitely amplified.

  "I had to have a talk with Matt about that after," he continues. "And we did return the stuff he hadn't opened. Her dad actually only stepped in once they were trying to figure out how the massager was supposed to help with her stomach pain. A warm water bottle is a lot more effective…"

  "A massager?" I ask. "Aren't those for your backs? Yeah, your stomach's a lot softer, so it probably wouldn't be good to use it there. Especially if you're already in a lot of pain."

  Trey and Adam both give awkward snorts, and now I'm certain I've misunderstood something.

  "Uh… why don't you go get showered and changed?" Trey suggests. "Katie should have a snack for you by the time you get to her."

  They must have something to talk about, but why do I feel really awkward after I asked about the back massager?

  Oh. That's not me feeling it. Why do they both feel awkward?

  [Greyson – 10 years] – begins during Xander's PoV

  "Yes, Greyson?" Travis asks.

  I'm lying on my stomach on the floor, staring at him as he plays a video game. He's being a typical boy and is in just his shorts right now, so I decided to do that, too, but the carpet feels weird. That was solved with a simple spell to make it feel comfortable, but then I got bored and started kicking my feet a bit.

  At least the bracelet feels nice. It's on my left wrist and is a metal chain/link bracelet with a faint green hue to it. Stylish and fashionable, and one of the things many boys are wearing these days. Xander made it for me yesterday, he's apparently into making jewelry now.

  "Did you want to go swimming?" Travis asks. "You'd need to ask Cal or Papa. I'm not allowed to supervise."

  "These aren't swim trunks."

  That's when Travis notices that they're just regular shorts. Besides, shouldn't he know that I wait outside by the pool when I want to go swimming?

  "What did you want?" He asks.

  "Papa said I'm not allowed to ask you to come to my workshop and test something for me," I tell him. "But he never said that you couldn't volunteer to do it."

  He snorts.

  "I'm not going to have to get naked for the test, am I?"

  "It's a total-immersion virtual reality pod," I tell him. "Where it makes you feel like you've been transported into a virtual world, but you aren't actually. I was told in no uncertain terms that that is banned even with measures to ensure total safety."

  Something about how the common person would never trust such a claim, even if it came from Adrian King, because it sounds too fantastical for real life.

  "So that's a yes."

  "Grandfather Adrian was very clear it also had to function with the users clothed," I say. "So I have made sure to design it so that the magitech will not be affected by clothes. That said, there is an enhanced experience that you can activate if you are unclothed, and your body will actually feel as if it's been through at least some of what you went through in the virtual world. Not the excessively painful stuff, but things like wind, rain, swimming, a beating, et cetera."

  "It uses magic on your body to do that, doesn't it?"

  "It's also fully capable of sanitizing you and the inside," I tell him. "For extended gaming sessions. While I do find it disgusting to relieve yourself inside of it, I think people would do it anyway if they had their own pods at home. I've also designed it to have a nutrient smoothie dispenser straight into your mouth. All the nutrients you need for a meal, in a smoothie fed into your mouth by a tube."

  "You haven't told our great-grandfather about that part yet, have you?"

  "I haven't seen him since I decided to add it."

  "I'm not testing that."

  "Aw… but I already mixed up a smoothie pouch for it and everything."

  "Let's just go and test the other stuff," he snorts. "I'll volunteer for it."

  "Okay!" I scramble to my feet as I teleport a shirt and swim trunks to him along with his shoes and socks, and my own shirt, shoes, and socks to me, as well as our backpacks. "Get dressed."

  "Why did you give me swim trunks?"

  "For testing another thing," I say. "You'll get soaked, and I understand that you're a bit more shy about your body than I am, so having your trunks ready is a good idea. That, and there's a chance of Xander appearing."

  Travis gives me a skeptical look, but doesn't protest. I then teleport us to the base and introduce him to the mega computer.

  "Shoes off before entering," I tell him after opening the pod. "Oh, and Xander made the program yesterday. He has game dev experience and I figured, the systems can't be too different so he can do it. The only thing I know it has for sure are octopuses, because I asked him to include some for you."

  "Alright," Travis removes his shoes, then climbs into the pod. "What am I testing?"

  "The game experience," I tell him. "The total immersion feeling. I'm trying to make sure everything is synchronized properly. That you're actually feeling what you're supposed to. No effect on your real body, it's all virtual. Once you're inside and the pod is closed, think 'Initiate Link' and it should load in. That's the current activation phrase. I'll be able to watch you from my holographic table over here."

  "Okay."

  Travis climbs into the pod and it closes, then I watch on the projection table as he appears in an emptiness in a pair of white pants and a white long-sleeved shirt.

  Huh. Did Xander program that on purpose?

  Travis has a game menu in front of him, so I'm going to assume so. My brother navigates through the menu and I realize that he's in a Character Creation zone. All it lets him do is make basic changes to his looks, like his clothes, and a mirror opposite of him allows him to view his looks. The mirror even shifts the view of his body to show which parts he wants to look at, allowing him to look at his back so he can see how he looks from behind while he's picking things out.

  By the time he finishes his character customization after almost half an hour, Travis has… picked a pair of swim trunks. That's it. They're blue and have red octopuses on their sides, their tentacle-leg things wrapping around the bottoms of the legs. Well, he's also wearing some bracelets and a necklace made with plant fibers of some sort, beach glass, and shells.

  He looks ready for an ocean adventure, and that's exactly what he finds himself on when the game begins after the character selection.

  Now, my brother's standing on the back of a massive octopus. It's eyes are bigger than he is! Whoa.

  The game turns out to be guiding the mega-octopus through a series of obstacles including floating barrels, wooden rafts, fishing nets, harpoons from sailors, spells from mages, and a dragon for a final boss. Before the actual challenge begins, there's a notice explaining the goal is to reach the other side and win, but also a note to remember that real krakens are high-level monsters and are not suitable for friends.

  What's a kraken?

  Well, it doesn't matter. Travis is having a blast with this game, even with how dumb it seems. Some of the stuff he can do is tell the kraken how to navigate through things, but also which magics to use. The kraken can create high-pressure blasts of water, sonic waves, acidic water shots, and "suck up", which is when it opens its massive mouth and sucks in a bunch of water to swallow an obstacle.

  There's a limited amount of each it can do, and Travis is able to restore them by eating some foods he can earn or purchase through a special shop using points earned by successfully dealing with obstacles.

  Why the rewards and purchases are delivered by storks, I have no idea. Maybe it's a god thing?

  The full game itself takes about twenty minutes, which is what Xander said he thinks is how long it should last. It looks like he was good with that estimate, just as I suspected he would be.

  "That was awesome!" Travis exclaims as he gets out of the pod. "It really felt like I was there, too!"

  "Excellent," I say. "Please answer all of my questions now."

  By the time I finish answering his questions, he's gotten a little frustrated with them, but they all really were important for me to ask. It seems the sensory input aspects are all functioning correctly. According to the monitors, all of his vitals were fine as well – nothing spiked or went wrong in the real world.

  Hm… we should probably do something a little bit more fun before I start the next test. Otherwise, his frustration might increase. It's always good to have fun, even if said fun doesn't involve explosions.

  Create Note: ask Xander to make a game full of explosions for me to play.

  "Change into your swim trunks," I tell Travis. "It's time for the one that gets you wet."

  "O…kay?"

  I'm changing into my swim trunks, too, and once we're both changed, I lead him outside.

  "Whoa," he says. "You've got a stream running through here?"

  "Yeah," I pick him up. "Hold your breath!"

  Travis lets out a shout as he realizes what's coming, and I throw him into the stream, then charge forward and jump, landing next to him just as he surfaces.

  "Isn't this just swimming while getting around Dad's and Papa's rules?" Travis asks.

  "As if you didn't go skinny dipping with your friends on Friday."

  "THAT WAS THE ONLY TIME!" His face turns bright red. "Wait! How did you even known about it?"

  "I was catching bugs nearby," I answer.

  "You're not gonna tell Dad and Papa, are you?" He shakes a little.

  "Why would I?" I ask. "It's just swimming without trunks, not like it's inappropriate. We were born naked, after all. I do it here all the time if Xander's not around. But there's a chance he'll show up today, so trunks on."

  "Okay," he says. "Um… you said it's time for the testing that gets me wet. So what are we testing?"

  "This bracelet," I hold up my left wrist so he can see it. "Xander made it yesterday, and it's supposed to make me technically as weak as a normal boy with my muscle mass and build when active, not as a mage with my strength with it. And I figured that the best way to do that would be to wrestle you in the stream. That way, if I accidentally use too much force, you just land in water. Oh, wait, I should activate it. There we go, activated! Prepare yourself, little fishy! The Shark King is coming!"

  [Xander – 12 years]

  Greyson and Travis are playing out in the stream very noisily, so I'm definitely not going back outside. I want calm and quiet, that's why I came here. Sure, I could've had that back home, but there's just something extra calming about here. With me wanting a big break from socializing this week, that also means I can do a lot of work on magitech.

  "Hello, Grandpa Adrian," I say as I walk past him, then stop and turn. "Oh. Hi, Grandpa Adrian."

  "A bit distracted today?"

  "Maybe just a little."

  "Alright," he chuckles. "Your cousin out there – did you make that bracelet?"

  Is that why he's here? Because I made that bracelet? It was something I made by accident, I didn't even realize I'd switched to it after Greyson's mutterings until I finished.

  "Yeah," I nod. "Oh, but it doesn't actually weaken him. And his body's just as resilient as always. I know he doesn't need to have something that weakens him since he's used to holding himself back and most strong mages can instinctively do it most of the time. Like Luke. He never physically hurt Parker whenever they roughhoused despite Luke being able to quite literally snap his spine with ease. What the bracelet does – in theory – is prevent them from putting out more force than their muscles would be able to if they weren't stronger due to the amount of mana in their body. But I'm not actually good with this kind of stuff and wasn't thinking about it much while working on it, so it probably doesn't actually work. Greyson just wanted it anyway so I gave it to him."

  He was very persistent, and I didn't think it'd be bad to let him take it. Chances are good Greyson just liked the design of it and doesn't care that it doesn't work.

  "It works pretty well, actually," Grandpa Adrian tells me. "I take it you were thinking of more than just Greyson for it?"

  It works?

  "Yeah," I nod. "Thursday, Luke showed up at the park and afterwards, I realized that he looked like he wanted to join the others. But he didn't. So I asked him on Friday, and he said that he's a lot stronger than them because of his mana capacity. Physically stronger. And if he really got into playing, he'd end up just… overpowering the rest. Running faster, jumping higher, throwing further, and all that stuff. And he's not even allowed to play on sports teams because of it. They apparently have an upper limit on how much mana you can have and still play."

  Since someone like Luke could completely dominate the field without a chance for others. It would completely unbalance the game and make it pretty much a guarantee that a team with someone like Luke will win every time.

  Which isn't fair to the normal players.

  "Hey, Grandpa?"

  "Yes, Xander?"

  "How powerful is Luke?" I ask. "Compared to, like, everyone?"

  "He's the eleventh most powerful mage on Earth."

  Whoa.

  "Where are Greyson and I?"

  "You're second, and he's third."

  Third?

  "But I've seen some boys who are stronger than Greyson."

  Grandpa Adrian frowns. Does that mean he doesn't know about them?

  "Um… a pair of twins about nine years old," I say. "They have more mana than he does, but less than I currently do. They disappeared very fast when they realized I could see them. It was a long-range teleport. Thousands of miles."

  "What were they doing?" He asks.

  "Spying on Greyson's ninja guards."

  Grandpa Adrian doesn't say anything in response to that, just stares at me.

  "I think they're ninja, too."

  "Okay," he snorts. "Let's get to the main reason I came here. Your puzzle sphere which uses the location of Errai to determine the formula, that chip is quite useful. Would you be willing to make a more advanced version of it, which can have any known celestial body keyed into it?"

  This is a test, isn't it? He probably suspects I already have an improved one.

  "I already did," I tell him. "Lemme find it real quick."

  I look through my things until I locate the chip, along with the how-to-program book I made to go with it. Mostly made. Greyson's computers helped make it so that it's actually understandable.

  "Here," I hold them out to my great-grandpa. "The chip and a book explaining how to program it. The book itself probably isn't that great… but I think it's readable."

  Grandpa Adrian takes both and looks through the book.

  "Thank you," he says. "This was an official request from a space agency, so you'll be getting paid for it, if I can take it."

  "You can, but that's a lot of money for so little."

  "Some things explode in value over the cost," he tells me.

  "Please don't-"

  "EXPLOSIONS?" Greyson suddenly appears in here. "YOU'RE HAVING EXPLOSIONS WITHOUT ME?"

  "Go back to playing with your brother," I tell him.

  "But explosions!"

  "No explosions."

  "No explosions?"

  "No explosions."

  "Aw," he disappears back outside.

  Now I'm going to have to deal with him blowing stuff up after he sends Travis home. I came here for the peace and quiet, too…

  Dammit.

  "Sorry about that," Grandpa Adrian says. "Anyway, you have a good rest of your day, Xander."

  "Thank you," I say. "Have a good rest of yours."

  [Luke – 13 years]

  The surface of the stream ripples as it flows, the clear waters flowing over stones and clay. Dad sits on a boulder not far from the one I'm sitting on, both of us watching in silence, waiting. Our bobbers drift slightly, and I reel in just a little before going back to watching and waiting.

  Sitting a little bit behind us, a little further away from the stream, is our gear. The shoes and socks we were wearing, along with our shirts. Our tackle boxes. It's just us and our rods here. Well, and our swim trunks and my new anklet, of course. Sun filters down a little from the canopy of the large forest we're camping in, though it's really only able to reach the center of the stream without hindrance.

  Calm and peaceful, with delicious fish for us to catch. I want to just put the rod to the side and jump into the stream, but that's for later. Right now, we're fishing.

  Even if we can take vacations basically whenever we want, this is the time that's dedicated to just Dad and me. No Mom, no Gabriel, no guards, no work, just us and the wilderness. And whatever it is we brought with us, such as the tents back at camp.

  There.

  I begin reeling in rapidly the moment my bobber fully sinks below the surface. Were I an ordinary kid, the fish would probably have a lot easier of a time escaping. As a powerful mage who's physically active, however, I'm fairly strong, physically.

  Which means I need to slow myself down so that I don't break the reel.

  "Dad, look!" I say once I grab the line after the fish is out of the water. "A shockmouth!"

  The large perch wiggles a bit on the hook, sparks dancing across its silver and gold scales. Some of the sparks hit my hand, but they're incapable of affecting me. I'm not concerned about the hook or line, either, as we made sure to factor in the local wildlife's magics when preparing for the camping trip.

  "A pretty big one," Dad says. "Please tell me you haven't forgotten what to do next since the last trip?"

  A potent zap of lightning magic shoots from my hand down into the fish, frying its brain and ending its life in an instant. That's probably not the exact method Dad was intending for me to do, but it works.

  "Alright," Dad chuckles. "That one's big enough for both of us, want to head back now and get cooking?"

  I look at the fish, then at Dad.

  "No," I shake my head. "I want to keep fishing for a bit," I grin at him. "You still need to try and catch one at least as big as mine, after all."