[Luke – 13 years]

  "And you're really coming over?" Seph asks as we exit our school.

  This first week of school, the two of us have talked a lot, mostly about games. I'm fairly certain we've become friends, and he even invited me over to his place. Tyler isn't supposed to be back until late this evening so I've got plenty of time to kill and don't mind spending it with Seph. The plan is for us to do our homework together, then figure out what to do next after that.

  Sort of like when I spent time with Parker, who definitely went back to DFMS. He hasn't been in any class and no teacher has called his name during roll so he's not in the roster. I still haven't seen him around since before the camping trip so I think he's also avoiding me.

  Well, not that we'd see each other normally if we attend different schools. The odds of us seeing each other arriving or getting home at the same time are slim. Our schools are in different directions from each other and it takes longer to get to our neighborhood from his than mine. We'll get home at different times most days.

  Not seeing Parker anymore really hurts, I've realized. Dad said I'll eventually get over losing my first friend, as long as I stick to my decision. I want to, too. As much as I want to see him around again and hang out with him again, he got pretty bad over me dating someone else. I have to keep reminding myself that I'll just have to deal with his attitude again in order to keep myself from trying to text or call him again.

  At least I'm making a new friend, and I'm not going to try and use him to replace Parker. I wasn't planning on inviting him to hang out at all for awhile, just to make sure I don't. Dad told me not to do the first thing, while the latter was my decision on how to avoid accidentally doing so.

  But Seph asked me yesterday if I wanted to come over after school today and I found it hard to decline. I want to hang out with him.

  "Yeah," I tell him, noticing that he's a little bit pale and slightly shaky, something that happens when he starts getting really nervous. That's definitely not normal for someone so I think his anxiety is really bad. "Everything alright?"

  Seph gets very nervous a lot, I've noticed. Almost all day in school, unless he's really focused on something. Our homes are in similar directions so part of our trip is together and he tends to relax by the time we part ways, but I don't know what's causing his anxiety. It seems to be higher than usual at this point in the day every day as well.

  "Y-yeah," he nods. "I'll tell you later."

  He's actually going to tell me? That's… new. He's really avoided the topic with anyone who's asked him about it. That means he's trusting me a little bit more now, I think.

  We really are becoming friends!

  "Cool!" I say.

  We reach the bikes section and Seph unlocks his, then we walk down to the new hoverboards parking. Not many students actually take a bus here since it's a private school and we're scattered across four towns. Students come from all four of the towns in the area rather than just one and there wouldn't be very many students per bus. Because of that, only the areas where there are a lot of students have a bus which goes to them.

  As a result, most kids are either driven here by their parents or a driver, walk, or ride their bike. With many of us being from wealthier families, the odds of enough students riding a hoverboard to warrant a parking area for it was decided as necessary. The high number of old mage families with students attending this academy probably factored into that heavily.

  A wise decision, as it turned out. Roughly twenty of us are riding hoverboards, and Xander's bank account is probably looking pretty fat. I think his weekly income might outdo my income for the entire year so far.

  Which probably explains why he's able to miss half the day of school to do streams instead. He did that the past four days and I'm sure he did it today even though I didn't get an email letting me know he'd begun streaming.

  I enjoy watching his streams when I'm doing my homework, studying, training, and doing a little bit of actual work. I might not speak English and so couldn't understand three of his four streams this week, but it's still nice background noise.

  The creation of the hoverboard was definitely a nice thing, in more ways than one. And with them being designed to have true anti-theft enchantments on it, we can just leave the boards in the section dedicated for them and not worry about anything. Security cameras also monitor them in case someone tries to steal them anyway.

  I retrieve my hoverboard and hop onto it as Seph mounts his bike, then we ride towards the bike/hoverboard trail leading out of the property. There's a security gate there, though we aren't stopped as we leave since the school day is over.

  As Seph and I turn to begin the trip home, I stop my board, causing Seph to turn and look at me.

  "Tyler!" I hop off of my board and rush over to my grinning boyfriend as he pushes off the wall.

  Tyler's dressed in shorts and sneakers, a new-looking bike resting against the wall beside him with a backpack on the ground against its front tire. When I reach him, I pull him in for a hug and a kiss.

  "You said you wouldn't be back until this evening!" I release him but hold his right hand as I step back. "You look all cleaned up and everything!"

  Rather than still dressed in his hunting clothes and soaked with sweat. Well, he does have a little bit of sweat on him, but I'm guessing it's from standing out in the heat and maybe biking here. Today's a little on the humid side as well.

  "Dad told me to do that," his grin's still plastered on his face. "To surprise you. We actually got back suuuuuper late last night. After breakfast, we sold the stuff we'd hunted, then Dad took me to buy a bike. Since we're not normally in society for very long other than when doing vacations, a bike was never really needed. But with me making a friend and getting a boyfriend, and Dad trusting you… well, he decided I need a way to get around quickly which doesn't rely on him driving me."

  "Sweet!" I exclaim.

  "Who's that?" Tyler jerks his head at someone past me, and I remember about Seph.

  "Oh, right!" I step to the side as I turn a little. "Tyler, this is Seph, a new classmate. He just moved into the area recently. Seph, this is Tyler, my boyfriend!"

  "The monster hunter," Seph says with a tone which suggests he doesn't think it's real.

  Most of my classmates don't believe me that I'm dating a kid who hunts monsters with his dad as a career. I decided not to show them any pictures of him because of that, though I think they'd probably think we were just friends even if I did.

  I wouldn't be surprised if Seph thinks I asked Tyler to play along with it. A few other boys are watching us from a "safe" distance away and I'm sure they want to know how much of what I've told them about Tyler is true or not.

  "Yeah!" I nod. "Can I show him the pictures you sent me? The ones you sent 'while on the way back to civilization'?"

  I make finger quotes at that last part, since he was already back by that point.

  "I can do it," Tyler chuckles. "I have more than I showed you. And y'all can come over if you want, I ain't shy about it."

  The part directed at the small group was with a raised voice and a different accent than I'm used to, and they approach us. We move further down the sidewalk so that we're not taking up an unnecessary amount of space right at the exit. That would just cause a traffic jam of departing boys.

  Tyler pulls out his phone and starts showing off some of the pictures he has from his most recent hunt. Not all of them look as pretty as the ones he showed me… and he even has a few videos of him gutting and skinning the beasts.

  "Oh!" Tyler exclaims, his accent still the different one. "I grabbed a drive from our storage, it has more. I always back everything up and keep a copy on there, since my phone ain't able to hold that much. Wanted to show you some of the older pics and vids."

  Tyler pockets his phone and pulls a laptop out of his backpack, then plugs in an external hard drive. He sits on the ground to pull up whatever it is he wants to show us, so that he doesn't have to deal with balancing the laptop and finding a good spot for the drive. Once he's got it pulled up, he turns it around to show us.

  "This is a video from four years ago," Tyler says. "When I was ten. Haven't shown it to Luke since it was so long ago, but figured y'all might like it."

  The video is of his dad walking him how to gut and skin a bear. Tyler explains that it's his first time doing so (to us, not in the video). He's got quite a few injuries in the video so it must not have been an easy fight.

  Then something darts out of the brush of the forest. Tyler quickly stands and kicks with a spin, sending the magic rabbit flying into a nearby tree with enough force it quite literally bursts a bit.

  "Daaaaaaaaaamn!" I say. "Never knew you could do that!"

  "We mostly hunt stronger things," Tyler chuckles as he pauses and closes the video, then he unplugs the drive and puts it and the laptop back into his backpack, which he then pulls on as he stands. "And we caught the boar we went after this week! I'll tell you about it once we're hanging out."

  "Sure!" I say, then glance at Seph for a moment. "Though Seph and I were going to his place to hang out."

  "Um… that's fine," Seph says. "He can-he can join us."

  "You sure?" I ask. "I mean, I do want to hang out with him, but I think he'd understand if he had to wait until later."

  "Yeah," Tyler says. "It's cool! Luke didn't even think I'd be here for another, like, four or five hours. Ain't gonna expect him to rearrange his schedule just 'cause I'm here early."

  Something Dad was clear with me about after Tyler left after the hangout we started dating was that I should never expect my boyfriend to rearrange his schedule, nor ever allow them to require it of me. Not unless it's an actual emergency. He said doing that is disrespectful to the other person and an act of attempting to control them.

  This happened after Tyler left, so he definitely didn't hear me get told that. Either his dad told him to make sure he doesn't do that, or he's like me and wouldn't have wanted to anyway. I'm betting it's the latter and he just isn't the kind of guy who'd make his boyfriend rearrange his schedule just to hang out.

  "Also," I look at the other students still here, then start waving in their direction with sparks dancing on my hands and arms. "Show's over! You've met my boyfriend and got to see some pics and vids of him hunting monsters! Go! Shoo! You've all got places to go!"

  The other boys quickly start moving, still afraid of my sparks. I give their departing backs a satisfied smile and nod, then look at my boyfriend and new friend as I turn off the sparks.

  "It's really fine," Seph says once it's just the three of us. "My mom'll be happy to have two over rather than just one. And since the second's the boyfriend of the first rather than some rando, that's fine. Though, uh, I'm not sure what you can do while we do our homework…"

  "I've got homework, too," Tyler says. "Dad homeschools me since we're not really in town long enough for me to attend regular school. I have packets to do when we're in towns as a form of homework."

  He didn't already do them?

  "Okay," Seph nods. "Um. Let's get going."

  Seph seems a little more nervous now for some reason, and it almost seems like he might not be able to ride his bike properly. When we reach the point where we would normally go in different directions, Seph stops riding so we both do the same.

  "Um…" he's a lot more pale now. Is there even any blood left in his face? "I, uh… my family's not rich."

  "You can afford to go to the academy," I say. "That means you're rich."

  "No," he shakes his head. "We did move here this summer, but it was because I got into the academy. I'm on a sort of scholarship."

  "I looked into those," I say. "The academy doesn't do scholarships."

  After learning that Parker's family is rich, I looked into if normal people can attend the academy I do. As it turns out, they don't have a scholarship program for gifted boys (or girls, at the sister academy).

  "Not from the academy," he says. "I'm being sponsored by someone. They're paying for me to attend. I have to maintain good grades for them to sponsor me into high school as well. Ma and I moved here because of it. But we're really not that well-off. And hearing the comments I've heard about that Parker kid…"

  He trails off and really looks like he's on the verge of passing out.

  "Oh," I realize why he's been so nervous this week. "You're worried how people'll act if they find out you're not rich?"

  "Y-yeah."

  "Parker was my friend until recently," I tell him. "So it honestly doesn't bother me. I probably should've said stuff when hearing them before, but that's the past now. If I hear them talking crap about you, though, I'll put a stop to it."

  "You don't seem to have the best reputation, either…"

  "I used to have a condition," I tell him. "It caused me to be super hyper and just do nonstop babbling. That is why my classmates didn't like me. They're… still adjusting to me not being that way. It's something that only got fixed last month."

  "Isn't that just being hyper?"

  "No!" Tyler laughs. "Trust me, it went way beyond that."

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  "Yeah," I say. "It was an actual condition caused by a unique situation with my mana. Adrian King was involved in getting it fixed, so that should tell you how serious it was. Anyway, I'd assumed Parker didn't care about the comments, so I never said anything. But I was dumb before."

  That's not a mistake I'll ever make again.

  "Though as a heads-up," Tyler says. "He's still dumb about stuff. No one socializing with him has stunted his social awareness and he sometimes says stuff that comes off as insensitive when he's surprised or confused by something. So if he says something which might seem rude or offensive, it probably ain't unless he's directly being rude or insensitive."

  "I'm not that bad."

  "You can be," Tyler snorts. "But yeah, just keep in mind that Luke's mostly been surrounded by wealthier people, so he might not understand some stuff or be surprised by it."

  "Even with Parker?" Seph asks.

  "Parker's not poor," I add. "He just never told anyone he wasn't, and my dumb self didn't realize that his family moving next door to mine was a sign that he wasn't. The properties in our neighborhood cost in the millions."

  "Oh," he still seems nervous. "Is that what caused you and Parker to not be friends anymore? You not defending him?"

  "No," I shake my head. "I'm not sure his feelings on that, but since he doesn't attend our school anymore, it doesn't really matter. What happened between us was… an issue that he has to deal with. He was getting kind of toxic and trust me, it wasn't related to the comments at school. But I don't want to talk about him anymore."

  "A-alright," Seph says, then fidgets a little. Sorry for not being honest. I've just… never been around so many rich people before. And it's kind of intimidating… you're all so influential."

  "Most of them get their influence from their families, not themselves," I say. "Only, like, three kids between our school and the sister academy have influence on their own, and I'm one of them. Anyway, let's get going! I want to see your house!"

  Seph nods a little and resumes riding his bike, though he's not as shaky nor as pale as before. Still some so it's clear he's nervous but at least he's relaxed a little.

  He leads us through town near to the northwestern edge where there's not another town bordering it. It's close to the roads leading to the ruins of Nine Springs which means that he really lives at the edge of things.

  "What?" Tyler asks as I chuckle.

  "Oh," I say. "Just remembering the big panic where my parents and I got called in because of that Rift alarm. That road we just passed is the road we took on our way in."

  "A Rift alarm is funny?" Seph asks. "Ain't those super dangerous? I mean, it's cool y'all were able to take care of it, but people got hurt, didn't they? We were so worried something would happen to us, that monsters might not get noticed and hit our neighborhood."

  Tyler and Seph both talk like that, though their accents are slightly different. They must've both been hiding their real accents for some reason. Tyler probably so he could try and impress me and not make me think he was some bum kid and Seph probably… so that people don't think he's from the country? Or something, I don't know.

  "No one got hurt," I tell him. "What's funny about it was that it was a false alarm. Mana sensors are only able to pick up large quantities of mana in an area. My family's company has them installed at most of our facilities – anywhere which produces energy or where we store power cores. It's a security measure. They can only sense what's essentially in the air, not in objects or people or stuff. And it does require a lot.

  "The sensors for detecting Rifts are the same," I continue. "Except they're bigger and more powerful in some ways. They can't sense the smaller large quantities the sensors used in some businesses can, only much bigger amounts. Despite not being able to sense a lower amount, they can sense over vast distances. If there's enough mana in the air that a normal person can feel it, the sensors the military use can detect it."

  "There are things other than Rifts that can put out that much mana?" Seph asks.

  "Not sure about things," I chuckle. "I can feel people's electrical signals, and if I'm familiar enough with a person, I can even tell theirs apart from others'. We get close enough to where the Rift might be and I can feel the signal of a person. No monsters, meaning the Rift hadn't let any out yet, but I knew the person in question. My neighbor, Xander."

  "Xander King?"

  "Yup!" I nod. "Didn't realize how potent he was back then… and jumped out of the car to go make sure he was safe. Found him curled up on the ground in his pajamas, sleeping."

  "He was sleeping near a Rift?" Seph gives me an incredulous look and nearly unbalances on his bike. "What?"

  "Nope!" I laugh. "Turns out, he'd accidentally leaked enough mana to cause my family to get summoned for assistance. It wasn't a Rift at all, it was Xander badly casting a spell! Once he'd realized what happened and stopped freaking out over his mistake, he gestured with his hands. I thought he was just panicking more, but it turned out to be him pulling in the mana he'd leaked which hadn't dissipated yet. Made an extremely large mana crystal from it."

  "Wait!" Tyler laughs. "You didn't tell me that part!"

  "Oh, yeah!" I laugh again. "As it turns out, an improperly-calibrated Xander can accidentally leak a ton of mana, and a properly-calibrated one can gather ambient/loose mana in high quantities. The mana crystal he made wasn't flawless but dang if it wasn't large."

  "That's… amazing," Seph says. "I can sort of make a mana crystal on my own, but there's so much leakage it ends up being really weak."

  What did he just say?

  "Wait, what?" I ask. "Are you from an old mage family or something?"

  "No," he shakes his head. "I'm mostly self-taught as a mage. And it's really hard for me to make the crystals."

  "Dude," Tyler says. "That's insane. It takes a ton of skill to make one with even a single mana in it. And you're self-taught? What gen are you?"

  "Uh… first?" Seph answers. "I'm the first mage we know of in my family, and was born with average mana capacity."

  If he's being honest, then it's no wonder someone wanted to sponsor him for the academy. That's the sort of talent which should have connections and flourish. Whoever sponsored him for the eighth grade would likely have wanted to see how well he learns higher-level socialization skills or something like that. The best way to do that is to send him to an academy full of high-level kids.

  I'll see if I can get my parents to verify things. Or Xander, as he's the ultimate lie detector.

  "That's pretty neat," I tell him. "You must've worked hard to develop that."

  "Yeah," he nods. "My parents were never well-off, and after my da got sick a few years ago, well… I wanted to try and contribute more."

  "So your dad's sick?" Tyler asks.

  "Dead," Seph shakes his head. "He passed away last year. But he went hunting a lot and that helped us out with meat and hides and we even earned a little extra money from it. He took me hunting a few times before he got sick. I'd read that hunting with magic can earn you more money and that's why I started learning. Though it wasn't until later that I learned it was actually hunting magic beasts, not using magic…"

  "We all do stupid stuff when we're ten," I grin at him. "So you go hunting?"

  "Yeah," he answers. "I'm going tonight, too. Ma found a hunter she trusts with me, and he's taking me along on a hunting trip this weekend. It's antelope season and I'm going to try to catch one. The meat'll last us awhile."

  "Isn't hunting expensive?" I ask. "Wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy the meat at a store?"

  "Depends on how you're hunting," Tyler says. "On public land? You don't need to pay for a hunting lease like you might on private land. Those are usually for a season or a year, with some conditions. The hunting license itself is fairly cheap and if you manage to get a decent-sized beast? You'll get a ton of meat out of it. And if you're using gear you've had for awhile and on many hunts, it'll come out cheaper that way."

  "Yeah," Seph says. "I'm a magic archer and even made my own bow, so that helps cut down costs a little, too."

  "So you imbue arrows with magic?" I ask.

  "No," Seph shakes his head. "I actually create the arrows with my magic. Though I do have some arrows that I might imbue, if I need something special. As Tyler said, though, how much it costs versus how much it earns depends on how you do it and what you hunt. And there's no season on small game here, so I can hunt rabbit at any time."

  "So you earn a lot of money from hunting, then?"

  "Gods, no!" He laughs. "It saves on buying meat, but that's mostly it. The amount of money made from hunting ain't much unless you get something good. I mean, we could sell the meat we get since it can also sell for a decent bit depending on what it is, but the profit wouldn't be massive. I don't think. I do sell some of the hides for cash, though. That does help a little."

  "Yeah," Tyler says. "But if you really want to make money hunting, you've gotta go with magic beasts. That's not really feasible until you've got around 20-30 mana, and you'll just be going after weaker stuff at that point. Double that's really where you start being able to catch stuff worth some cash."

  This is confusing, but I guess it's because of the difference between magic and non-magic. Foods with magic in them are more delicious, and materials with magic in them have specialized uses. A pelt from a normal rabbit probably can't be used for much, while the pelt of a rabbit with fire magics can probably be used to make gloves and hats with better insulating properties for when it's cold out.

  I don't fully know how that works, but I think that's right. I just buy clothes at the store and if they're warm, they're warm.

  "Oh."

  "That's my house there," Seph says. "Next one after this."

  When we reach the house, Seph takes us around to the back and locks his bike up at the deck. Tyler does the same and I just park my hoverboard there. I can sense someone inside, so I'm assuming that's his mother.

  "That's a lot of vegetation," I note. "Kind of looks a bit overgrown. And are those chickens? Why do you let those walk around on your property? Aren't they dirty?"

  Tyler points at me with a "see?" expression when Seph looks at me. I don't know what that's about, chickens are raised on farms so there's no reason to let wild ones wander around their yard.

  "For eggs," Seph tells me. "We eat 'em, use 'em in some of my rabbit hide tanning, trade 'em to others, or just plain sell 'em. That's why they're in a fenced-in area."

  "Oh," I look around. "It's a big property, I thought you said you were poor?"

  Tyler groans.

  "It is, though!" I say. "It's gotta be at least three or four acres, if it goes to the tree line."

  There's a decent-sized yard with a tree line surrounding it, and even what looks like a stream flowing through part of it near the tree line at the back.

  "I see what you were saying," Seph tells Tyler, then looks at me. "The properties here are cheap because they're by wilderness and we're so close to Nine Springs. Not a lot of people want to risk some monster or other coming, and it also takes a little bit longer to get to the stores and stuff."

  "Not that much longer," I say. "Even by bike, it only took us what, fifteen, twenty minutes to get here from school?"

  "We also took a couple of bike-only paths which shortened the trip," Seph points out. "Though it's only a minor factor. The chance of some wild monster showing up is the main reason it's low. This property is bigger than where we used to live, though. That's mostly because we were able to afford it after selling the old house. We did bring the chickens with us, and I had to help build the coop.

  "And those vegetation patches you see are produce gardens," he says. "We do companion planting, where you plant things together. It helps things grow if you do it right. Some of the stuff planted there draws in pollinators or deters pests. You guys wait out here, I'm gonna let Ma know I'm home and get us some drinks. You want water, lemonade, or tea?"

  "What kind of tea?" I ask.

  "Sweet tea," he answers.

  "Tea, then," I say.

  "Same here," Tyler says.

  "Alright," Seph says. "Back in a minute."

  He drops his backpack on the deck and heads inside, and Tyler just looks at me and shakes his head.

  "What?" I ask.

  "Your comments about the property size, overgrowth, and that," he says. "That's what I was meaning by you sometimes make comments without realizing how they might sound. It made it seem like you were calling him a liar and that they don't take care of their property. With the chickens, he'd literally just talked about how he hunts to get some of their meat. You didn't stop to think 'oh, hey, maybe they prefer fresh eggs from their own chickens over going to the store to buy them'. Or that maybe it saves them money."

  "Oh," I say. "Well, isn't it still a lot of extra work? You save yourself the effort if you just buy them at the store."

  Tyler just groans a little as he shakes his head again.

  It takes Seph a few minutes to come back out, and Tyler mostly just asks me about how school's been this week. When Seph finally comes out, it's with his mother, who's carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, three glasses, and some cut veggies. Celery, carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, and some mixed berries.

  "Hello, boys," Ms. Lee greets us.

  "Hello, ma'am," I respond. "I'm Luke, and this is my boyfriend, Tyler."

  "Seph's told me a lot about you," she says. "He's been so nervous about making friends in a new school-"

  "Maaaaa!" Seph complains, his face turning red. "This is why I told you not to come out here!"

  "I wanted to meet your friends," she smiles at him, then sets the tray on the table on the deck and smiles at us. "Make sure you boys get your homework done before playing."

  "Yes, ma'am," I respond.

  "Will do!" Tyler says.

  Ms. Lee returns inside, and I look at Seph.

  "I like her."

  "Let's do our homework," he quickly says.

  Tyler and I join him on the deck, and the three of us pull out our homework to work on. Seph is a lot smarter than I expected a normal person to be, only asking for help on a couple of questions. It's surprising that he made it into the Honors-level math class with me.

  Almost as if he can tell what I'm going to say, Tyler kicks me under the table when I open my mouth to mention it. What's wrong with that comment? Seph seems to be almost as good as I am at this despite coming from a poor family. It's a compliment.

  We finish our homework, then try to decide what to do.

  "Throw a ball around?" Tyler suggests. "Or disc? I've got some in my backpack."

  "Um…" Seph hesitates. "If you go hunt monsters regularly, you're probably pretty strong, right?"

  "Have over 500 mana!" Tyler puffs up his chest a little.

  "Yeah… I'm nowhere near that," Seph says quietly.

  He seems a little uncomfortable by that, so I should definitely avoid saying my real capacity to him, but I'll still let him know that he's fine. I'll remind him that I'm strong enough that our classmates are concerned about me joining in, but also that there's been a solution to that made.

  "It's not widely known how much mana I have," I say. "But I have at least ten times as much as he does. If you're worried about him not being able to hold back, don't! He's got one of the anklets made by Xander as well. We're still not sure why he made one for both of us instead of just us, and understanding Xander's thought process would be like trying to understand the mysteries of magic. You can ask, but even he might not know. Anyway! What did you want to do?"

  "Um… how about a football?"

  Tyler grabs a football from his backpack, and we begin throwing it around after the two of us turn on the strength-restricting anklets.

  Seph turns out to be surprisingly good at throwing the football, allowing us to run around and throw it from a decent distance. After we throw the ball around for a bit, we take a break and talk about what to do next. Getting to see him do magic archery would be pretty awesome, but he wants to conserve his mana for the hunting trip.

  "Does an antelope really take that much to kill?" I ask. "How much does it take for your arrows?"

  "About-three tenths of a unit," he answers. "Or four-tenths, if I rush the creation. But it's possible I come across a predator, or a magic variant of something I might be able to catch. And we can hunt small game all year here, so I might try to take on those if I see them. The more I can get out of a single trip, the better."

  "Oh," I say. "I guess that makes sense. What's the strongest thing you've caught?"

  "Uh… nothing?" He looks at me in confusion. "Most normal game you hunt isn't magic, so there ain't stuff like that. There's difficulty and dangerous, but that's different. Like, I got a coyote earlier this year while hunting rabbits. But it ain't like it was able to shoot bullets of stone at me or something."

  "There are beasts which can do that?"

  "Stonebullet elk is one that lives nearby," Tyler says. "My dad and I've hunted them before. Getting hit by their bullets hurts like crap! They taste pretty good, though."

  The two of them talk about their hunts for a few minutes, even though they're both in vastly different leagues. I want to bring up my "hunts", but I don't think helping deal with Rifts and demons is the same thing. The payout tends to be vastly different as well.

  We return to throwing balls around and by the time Tyler and I need to leave so Seph can prepare for his hunting trip tonight, I've had a lot of fun.

  "See you Monday!" I tell Seph. "Good luck on your hunt!"

  "Thanks," he says. "Y'all have a good weekend."

  Tyler and I leave and once we've gone past a few houses, I glance at him.

  "You've been faking your accent before, haven't you?" I ask.

  "Yeah," he answers. "Most of the kids I hang out with are those we visit on vacation. Those tend to be wealthier kids, who tend to look down on those of us with a less 'refined' accent. So I learned to modify how I talk for y'all, but… I guess being around Seph must've brought it back out. We make a lot of money, but we're country to the core."

  "It's fine," I tell him. "I don't care about that sort of thing, as long as you're cool. He was fun to hang out with. I've never done that sort of thing before."

  "You hang out with me all the time," he says. "And you used to hang out with Parker enough you two practically lived at each other's homes."

  "Not like that," I shake my head. "Just… throwing balls around and stuff. Parker and I, and you and I, wrestle around, compete in training, watch TV, and play video games. And his mom did seem nice, even if she tried to embarrass him at the start."

  It's great when it's not me getting embarrassed.

  "And I know I do stuff like throw a ball around on vacation," I say. "But that's usually as a game of some sort. This was just… us throwing balls around and goofing off."

  With pretty much all of my classmates disliking me due to the issues caused by my mana, this wasn't something I ever really got to do before now. Most of how my father plays with me is by making robots and stuff, too. Gabe prefers competing in training or the pool or something.

  This was different from what I'm used to, and it was nice.

  "Well," Tyler says. "Seems he likes you enough to want to be your friend. Anyway, let's grab something to eat on the way back. And then I can whup your butt in a battle in the pool!"

  "Hah!" I laugh. "You wish! Let's get ice cream! Race you there!"

  Did you expect Luke to manage to make a friend his first week back at school?