I'm finally back and omg, a chapter title and not just a number. It's properly a bad title but its better than a number and a lot more convenient when I have to reread to remember something.
Marco was in his room, equipping his newly modified armor. His new armor would be more fitting, it was unrecognizable from before. It had been cut a bit off, it's just a bit longer than the lowest rib of his ribcage. The magical stone in the middle of the armor was covered by metal. Under the armor was a thin scaly long sleeve hide shirt. His plated metal gauntlet was reinforced at the knuckles with thicker metal and short fat spikes and fitted nicely with his elbow guards that also had that fat spike. His humeral was only protected by the scaly hide. His lower body was protected by a thicker scaly hide, Marco wouldn't be surprised if they came from the same creature. And only his shin and knee were reinforced with metal that both had short fat spikes that complimented the black boots. It was completely black, it had a dragonic look to it. All in all, it looked like a hybrid of a knight and a rouge. And to top it all off was his headgear a jawless white skull. He looked himself in the mirror, that ought to be the most menacing looking knight he had ever seen, even black knights in the underworld was more colorful.
Marco was to meet with Solis and was told not to eat breakfast, at this point he just did what the man said. Marco was willing to trust the man to that extent. Marco opened a portal to the living room, he was greeted by Solis and Luna.
"Goodmorning, Marco, and might I add you look excellent." Solis complemented, Luna nodded and thumped Marco up. "So I'll go ahead and brief you in, Luna is in charge of your mental and spiritual training while I will train you physically and tactically. And you will start training what I have planned and then you will go on to my dear sister's training program. Any questions?"
"I don't think so."
"Good, there's nothing like the present. Let's go." Solis says a bit too eagerly. Marco has a bad feeling about the training but goes through the portal Solis had summoned anyway.
He was right, he found himself in an open mud plain that was littered with swords, axes, maces, halberds, spears you name it varying sizes of each kind. It looked like the aftermath of a giant battlefield, but it was weird, there were no bodies of the fallen, and if they were retrieved then why not also the weapons and there's no smell of blood.
Marco's train of thought was promptly stopped when he saw 6 knights and a rouge each wielding different weapons and 2 creatures of unknown origin that are the complete opposite of each other. One big and bulky the other small and nimble.
"Are they also looking to become death knights?" Marco asks looking a bit relieved but that is quickly replaced by worry as Solis shakes his head.
"No, they are too heighten your abilities with each of their specialty. You will spar, one on one, with them, using the weapons in the ground but you will have to use your opponent type of weapon, every 10 min you will fight a new opponent when you have fought with everyone, will it simply repeat until I deem it is enough."
Marco's face is just filled with dread but he has to push through. "Alright who is first?"
Luna sits and hums beautifully while she goes over her training program, there are lots to be done if the 2. phase of his training should ever start. She lightly chuckles when she imagines how he would react to the first lesson.
As if on cue a portal opens and out is a bloody Marco thrown. " Good, go on take a seat over there." She points to a simple chair and a table.
"Come on now, you cant just lay there." Marco was unresponsive, he just laid there hyperventilating trying to get as much air in his system as possible.
"Oh, poor boy, he worked you to the bone, didn't he?" She went closer looking down on the dead tired champion in training.
She leans down and runs a hand down his face getting rid of most of the half-dry blood and then locks eyes. She smiles at him, " I trust my brother has healed your wounds, and I'm sure you're tired and famished, but if you are to be our champion then rise." She whispers and places a kiss on his forehead.
Marco just looks at her with his tired, bloodshot eyes and after a few seconds get struggling up like a zombie. He stands on wobbling feet and is ready to collapse at any moment. She takes his hand and leads him to his seat.
He sits with his head back and his arms just hanging. "First you will have to clean your armor."
He happily complies taking his armor off after a great deal of struggle.
"Also your under armor and your shirt."
He gets it all off without question and finds a rag, a Scotch-Brite pad, and a weird-smelling bucket on the table.
He wipes the armor and gets rid of most dirt and blood, and would use spit but the only slime comes out and now clings to his chin. He uses the dirty rag to while his chin, not caring about the mixture of dirt and blood left on his chin. He had been almost literally forced to eat mud and dirt, so a dirty rag hardly matters. After moistening the bigger chunk of dried blood and reduced the dirtiness the most a rag could. He uses the pad, lightly dipping the gritted part in the bucket, and proceeded to scrub the surface in circular motions.
He tightened his back when a cold rag touches him. "Relax, I'm going to applying a salve." After riding his back of sweat she applied a thin layer of salve.
He finished cleaning his chest armor and proceeded to repeat the process for all his armor. It was actually nice, it allowed him to breathe and relax his body. However, it also gave him the luxury to notice Lunas get up. In what world is a transparent robe acceptable.
"If you are distracted now, we are going to have problems." She stands opposite to him. "Don't stop scrubbing that armor not gonna clean itself."
"Bloodmoon goddess, Luna Sanguis, could you please take some proper clothes on." Marco locked eyes or at least he tried to.
"I appreciate the respect, but call me Luna, you are our champion in training and not some mortal." He nodded and continued scrubbing.
"Then Luna, Ill ask again. Would you be so kind as to get proper clothes."
She smiles at him "No can do, even in our brief conversation you were distracted by my body 15 times in total and that won't do."
"...It is out of my control."
"Your boner is out of your control, but your mind getting flustered and distracted is not."
"Wha-I... its instinct." Marco flusteredly defends.
"No need to be embarrassed as you said its instinct, but we need to fix that childish attitude of yours."
"How?" He asked dumbfounded.
"There are a couple of ways and you are doing them all." She smiles sadistically at him.
"Could you not smile like that like I'm gonna be in a world of hurt."
"Well, that obviously because you are going to hurt...a lot."
He drops his head on the table in agony, but at least it couldn't be worse than what the eclipse god had forced him to endure. "I'm done with my armor, I will-."
"Leave your upper body exposed." She stops him from taking his shirt and armor on.
"If you say so."
She nods and snaps her fingers. "Now I have picked women that mostly resemble humans." In instant pair of various animal girls, you would see in anime comes in. Foxes, bunnies, raccoons, and dogs.
"And why?" Marco asked. He eyed one of the dog girls that kinda resemble one of his laser puppies.
"For your training of course." She said as if it all made sense.
"..." He just looked skeptical.
"It's true-" One of the foxes said.
"We are here to help you train." The other fox finished.
Marco taking in the situation, Luna in the sexual getup, the beast girls just as inappropriately dressed and somehow this is part of his training. "All- Woah!"
He instinctively dodges a ball that imbeds itself into a wall. "What the fuck! That could have killed me."
"Don't be silly, it will only kill you if it hits your head." Said the girl that resembles one of his laser puppies way to playfully.
Marco looks at Luna. She throws a black gemstone and as soon as he catches it the lights in the room turned off leaving them all in total darkness. "The rules are simple for this exercise, you need to dodge incoming projectiles while verbally pointing out changes when we call your name."
"Wha- this makes no-aaaaahhhhhh." A ball came flying and hit one of his thighs. He doesn't have time to waste, he jumps randomly and hits a wall. That makes no sense there weren't any walls near him. Marco ignores his bewilderment and concentrates for a split second to use night vision a spell he learned from Solis. His hunch was right this gem he got is just like the one he has in his armor. It a wonder how he can use this stone since a magic stone can only be used by the one it binds itself too.
"ARhhhhhhh" Another ball hit him. He doesn't have the luxury to worry about currently irrelevant things. He hears calls for him and turns his attention to a raccoon girl. He hesitated and got hit by three balls. They hurt like hell and leaves him on the ground. Due to their kindness or more likely their dismay, they stop bombarding him with balls.
"Get up, you don't have time to lay down." A bunny girl said.
He gets up again. "She..." He dodges another ball. "She has no... clothes on."
Another call for him, but he can't see any difference and after a few seconds, "She had her hair cut by a cm" And he got electrocuted and got hit my more balls in the chest, his legs and arms, "you need to pay more attention even to the minimal details," Luna said.
"How the hell am-" An extra fastball came flying. "That almost hit my head!"
"That is what you deserve for disrespecting our goddess." said the girl that almost killed him.
"So stop dodging." one behind him said.
"are you cra-" All went black in the already black room when he caught a ball to the side of his head.
"Oh my." Luna clapped her hands and the room lit up. "He lost sooner than I expected. Oh well, girls its time for the message and medical treatment, I want him to awaken with a fatigue less body."
And the animal girls went to work.
It has been almost three weeks since she last saw Marco. Her life was doing better, her lifestyle began a new normal. It was ridiculous when she talked with Marco's parents about it, they thought he had died since then she thought of how to properly phrase her meaning. It was weird and kind of hard to talk about Marco, but Tom was actually the one who pushed her and stood with her. She had forgiven him for burning the book after he had tried zealously to get her forgiveness, it is a bit ironic that he got her forgiveness when he decided to stop chasing it and just start helping where he could. He used his status and wealth as a prince to form a party to find Marco, not capture. And when he awkwardly but sincerely apologized she forgave him. Since then he has been a perfect boyfriend, he offers support whenever he can, she just wished she could do something for him, but he insisted that just being together was enough, even if it was reading law books.
"Tom, are you sleeping?" Star softly asked not to wake him if he was sleeping.
She looked up from her book and saw Tom laying on his back with a book in his face.
An embarrassing thought came to mind. When Marco had left her for the second time she was emotionally crushed. She didn't know what came over her but she had life-size mannequins of Marco and his parents and acted that they were real. She talked to them less and less when she began preparing for Eclipsas trial and completely forget the mannequins when Tom came into the picture until he accidentally found them.
She vaguely told him what she used them for and he interpreted that she was using them as training when she would confront them and he had then pushed her to do it, arguing that they deserve to know and promised to be there with her.
The confrontation was very reassuring, they told her that he would come back when he was done adventuring, he had sent them letters. He is apparently studying and training for an awesome profession.
She then asked a nerve-wracking question; "do you know why he left?" They said that he wasn't happy to be a squire and wanted to go adventuring. She decided to come clean and dismiss the white lie he told them. She confessed to them; how the people had been treating him, how she had let him down, and apologized to them.
They had that weird smile like they didn't know what to do, but they then reassured her that he didn't blame her and that they would make up like always. Star desperately clung to those words, they gave her hope that they could be friends again.
Star took the book off his face and placed a bookmarker before closing it. She then proceeded to watch him sleep a bit and touch his warm cheek, she moves her hand up through his hair towards his horn.
The horns, his third eye, and his skin all unmewman-like. Star sometime after she forgave him, told him about Marco's diary. She was surprised that Tom kinda knew Marco was being discriminated and spite by the mewmans. Tom could see it in the eyes of the other mewmans, Tom had those eyes upon himself, but when Marco was around they were directed at him. Star almost shouted at him why he didn't say anything at the time, but she already knew. Marco was so reliable and never complained when he started being her squire and maybe that's why she began disregarding him. It was slow, but surely he turned from a friend first and squire second to squire first and friend second.
Why are her people so discriminating against peculiar beings? She frowns in irritation.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Tom woke from her caressing touch.
"Oh... I was just... thinking of annoying things." She sheepishly said.
Tom raised an arm and took hold of her shoulder and in one motion he pulls her from her kneeling position having her head on his lap as he sits upright. He locks eyes with her again while caressing her heart marks and then he kisses her on the lips.
"Well, now you can think of me."
"I already were." She smiles tenderly at him.
"With that face. Should I be worried?" He joked.
"Only if you don't kiss me again."
He runs his hand through her hair and bends down again to deliver a kiss.
That is the chapter, the next will properly be a short one, properly a review of what he learns since I want his character development to happen during his journey to be a god chosen champion/knight.