"Focus, Forzen."

Muras stood in the training arena, standing in front of three large wooden targets. A day had passed since Forzen's arrival in Warfang, and he was training already. He had been reluctant to come down and start, but he had eventually complied.

To start with something easy, Muras had decided to start work on his lightning element, especially as it was his newest one, and one they both shared. Before they had begun, Muras had given him a brief rundown on what an essence core was, because he would be using a lot of vocabulary involving his core. It had been somewhat interesting, but Forzen tried not to make himself look too interested. He didn't want to open up too much or get too close to anyone.

His mentor's voice sounded once more. "Feel the power flowing through your core, and the steady beat of your heart. Breathe deeply, and focus," Muras said, and Forzen closed his eyes, slowing his breathing and hearing the thumping of his own heart in his ears. "Yes, that's it. Now feel out your lightning element and focus on your essence core. What do you feel?"

"I feel… energetic, somewhat. Like… something's trying to get out. My chest is tingling," Forzen explained, his eyes still closed, pausing as he tried to focus on his core. "I feel like there's a force welling up in me, wild and unpredictable, just waiting to come out."

"Alright. Take a deep breath and focus on it. When you exhale, expel the power inside you."

Forzen took a deep breath, feeling air flow through his nostrils, down his windpipe and into his lungs. The welling energy inside him stirred even more. Then he opened his mouth and exhaled, allowing the energy to rush out of his core. He felt it rush through his body, up into his throat, and out of his mouth. There was a loud crackling sound, followed by a few sizzles, as a large beam of lightning shot out of his mouth—still weak compared to those of other lightning dragons he had seen in Dark Peak, but a powerful beam nonetheless.

Forzen opened his eyes to see what he had done. He was a little off aim from the target he was meant to attack, noticing the zap mark on the ground right beside one of the wooden dummies, so he moved his head slightly so he could hit the target again. Once more, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, before he let the electricity fly out of his maw, and with a loud, sharp crackling sound, he hit his target. Forzen closed his mouth, and looked at the dark scorch marks left on the wooden target. He had done it!

He swallowed his excitement, not wanting to show it. But he couldn't stop the small smile pulling at his lips. Muras was beaming. "Great job, Forzen. Try it again. This time, do it with your eyes open," he ordered. "Watch your target. Focus on it. Call upon the power in your essence core and let it grow, and then take aim, before you let it out."

Forzen nodded, before he stared intently at the target. He then called on his electricity element. He felt his core well up with energy, his chest tingling. He kept his gaze on the target, and took a deep breath, feeling the tingling static make its way up to his throat and into his mouth. He exhaled, and the lightning came forth. Forzen's eyes widened at the beam of lightning he was breathing now. It was only his fourth one for the day, and already it seemed stronger than the last. Not as strong as it could be, but it would still cause quite a significant sting in another creature's body.

"Great job, go again," Muras said.

He continued for about five minutes, before he was able to release a decent beam of lightning. The target had black scorch marks all around it now, and once Forzen was getting a good breath attack going, Muras grabbed the target and chucked it out of the training ring, before standing in its place.

"Alright, use it on me," Muras ordered.

"What? Why?" Forzen exclaimed. "I-I-I don't want to; what if I hurt you?"

"It's a controlled environment, Forzen, and it's only me. I also want to get you used to this type of environment, since by the time school starts up for you, you'll be duelling against your classmates during combat classes," Muras reassured, and Forzen's eyes immediately widened with horror at the thought of it. "Try not to worry too much about it, Forzen. It's a controlled environment with a supervisor, and it's the best way to get a semi-realistic battle scenario without putting students in too much danger. In times like this as well, it's also necessary to teach so that even the students have a good idea on how to protect themselves."

"I… Okay…" Forzen murmured, still freaking out about the concept.

"Now, I want you to use your lightning breath on me," Muras repeated.

Forzen blinked, trying to force away the internal screaming in his head. He didn't think he was ready for this. He was afraid Muras was moving too fast. But at the same time, he was too scared to say that.

He just stood there and took a deep breath, before he reluctantly obliged, lowering his torso down to the ground in a battle stance. He felt the static energy form up inside his essence core, the feeling getting more and more natural every time he did it.

Lightning shot out of Forzen's maw towards Muras, who stood firm, awaiting the beam to hit him. He bit back his groans as electricity coursed through his body, quite visibly as arcs of electricity snaked between parts of his body. He stepped back, groaning with pain, as he shook his head to right his swirling vision.

Forzen watched his mentor with worry filling his eyes. Muras finally recovered, noticing Forzen's expression. He gave him a soft smile to try and reassure him. "I'm alright, Forzen," he said. "Don't worry about me."

"Did… did it hurt?"

"Yeah, it did. But… it was good. You've already picked it up pretty quickly. It's still a bit weak, but with some work, we can get it to average pretty soon, I reckon, and then we can aim for brilliant," Muras replied, before adding with a wink, "I think you picked it up even faster than I did."

Forzen blushed at Muras' praise. Unable to hold his mentor's glance, he turned his head away, looking at the marble ground below him. "I guess you're not used to the praise, aren't you?" Muras asked softly.

Forzen's only reply was a shake of the head. He didn't want to elaborate more, wanting to forget those memories, but they came up anyway. The discrimination, the anger, the beatings. The only dragon that ever praised him was Jaarsol, but she was gone. Kyoren was… tolerant… of him in the few moments they met, but only because of Jaarsol. Forzen remembered seeing the hatred in Kyoren's eyes. Or was it fear? It had been so long ago, he couldn't remember. There might have been fear in his eyes every time they met, but if there was, it didn't compare to the utter terror in his eyes when Spyro murdered him in cold blood.

"Forzen? Are you alright?"

Forzen's eyes snapped back to Muras, who wore a concerned look on his face. Forzen was confused as to why his mentor would be confused, until he felt moisture in his eyes. Dang it, go away, tears! Forzen thought, wiping his eyes aggressively before the first tear could let itself free. Stupid memories bringing up the tears! I can't cry! Not anymore! I'm not a baby! I'm not weak!

Muras' sigh caught Forzen's attention. "Forzen, when was the last time you cried?" Muras asked.

"Why are you asking? To see how weak I really am?" Forzen scowled, choking on his emotions.

"There's nothing wrong with being emotional. But there's plenty wrong with keeping all the emotions in, bottling them up. It's unhealthy and will hurt you in the long run," Muras explained.

"Well, I cried yesterday. Is your memory that bad?"

"No, when was the last time you really cried? That was forced; you weren't in your right mind when you cried yesterday. You were controlled by your trauma; whatever the traumatic experience was, I won't press on it now. I want to know the last time you actually cried, when you let the tears come."

"Fine, you want to know?! Last time I cried was nine years ago, when I was three! It was the first time Jaarsol ever expressed love to me!" Forzen snapped.

"Wait… you haven't cried in nine years? Since you were three?"

"Yeah, I used to cry all the time in the first three years of my life, but I managed not to make such a big deal of it. When I met Jaarsol… I absolutely bawled my eyes out when she showed me love; I'd never felt love like that before. Spyro eventually got word that I had been crying a few days later, and then beat it out of me when Jaarsol was helping with another task. I never cried again."

There was a long silence. Muras sighed sadly, before he spoke up. "Forzen… if you ever feel the tears coming… if you ever feel the need to cry… don't fight it. Let the tears come. I swear it will help you so much more than keeping the tears in ever will."

"I don't believe you. To cry is to show weakness. In a time of war and judgement, weakness is never a good thing. I need to stay strong, so I can at least survive my teenage years."

Muras opened his mouth to argue, but decided against it, sighing sadly and shaking his head. Forzen let out a low growl. "Let's just get back to training. I don't want to linger on this topic anymore," the younger purple dragon muttered darkly.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure," Muras said, recomposing himself. "Alright, I'm going to create some dummies for you to practice your lightning breath against. I would use the dark dragons but you're not ready for them yet, and I would use apes but I saw how much you struggled fighting them yesterday, considering they are still technically 'living beings'."

Forzen nodded, muttering a small 'thank you' under his breath, but Muras didn't make any sign of acknowledging him. Muras stepped out of the ring, and Forzen swallowed hard, his heart beginning to race. This was the same situation as yesterday with Cynder and the guardians. He knew Cynder wasn't here, but it still frightened him a little. Maybe they started training a bit too soon.

Maybe he shouldn't do this. He didn't like violence. He'd seen too much of it already. He thought of D'varin beating him up, Spyro killing Kyoren, the violence around him as he escaped Dark Peak, and even worse, Spyro beating him. Then there were the events of yesterday. Getting attacked by the shadowclaw and fearbringer, getting beaten by the fire and earth dragon Cynder had created in the training ring. Cynder beating him up.

He'd hoped for years that his mother would be there for him, wanting to care for him, after him being gone for almost twelve years. But his mother was just as abusive as Spyro was to him. Both his parents had beaten him. Forzen knew that that wasn't always the case, because he had been alive before Spyro turned, back when he and Cynder were still mates. But he had no memory of that time. No memory of the love his parents had for each other, and no memory of the love his parents had for him. No memory of the love he had for them.

"Are you ready, Forzen?" Muras voice cut through his thoughts.

Forzen blinked, almost having forgotten where he was, before he looked at Muras and remembered. Hesitantly, he nodded.

With that, four wooden bipedal dummies materialised in the ring, each of them holding wooden swords. Forzen started immediately with a beam of lightning, hitting one of the dummies square in the chest. It staggered backwards, electricity coursing through its body. A second dummy lunged at Forzen, sword raised, before Forzen swung his tail around and knocked the dummy to the ground. He breathed another beam of lightning at it, immobilising the dummy as it writhed on the floor.

The third and fourth dummies were running towards him now. Forzen stood strong as he breathed lightning at the third one, but missed, as they both tackled him to the ground, whacking him with their wooden swords. At least they were blunt wood, which would only leave bruises, unlike Derilan's sharp metal sword from yesterday—he still wore the scabs on his shoulders from the slash wounds.

Forzen felt the static building up in his core, but before he could guide it through and out of his mouth, it burst out of his chest in a powerful shockwave of lightning, throwing both of the dummies off him. He widened his eyes, stunned at what he had just done, before he stood up, looking at the two immobilised dummies on the ground.

The first two from earlier had recovered, and the first one was now rushing towards him. Forzen ducked underneath the swing of its sword, but the dummy then thrust its left knee upwards, ramming it into his chest. Forzen groaned, collapsing to the floor as he held his throbbing chest. The dummy was on top of him, raising its sword to 'finish him off'.

For a moment, Forzen could only see Derilan, on the verge of killing him, sword poised to strike at his heart the same way the wooden sword was. Forzen growled, forcing the frightening image out of his head so he could focus properly, and expelled lightning energy out of his body once more, throwing the dummy off him.

The second dummy was now onto him. Knowing he needed to remove it from the fight, he breathed lightning at it and immediately leapt on top of it, before he began to punch its head relentlessly, before it fell still. Forzen then felt the other three dummies jumping on top of him, tackling him to the ground, but he expelled more lightning energy from his body, throwing them all to the floor again. He grabbed the head of the third dummy and ripped it off, sending pieces of straw into the air, before he threw the head at the fourth dummy, which was on its feet ready to lunge at him. The dummy fell to the ground, dropping its sword on impact.

Forzen then leapt at the forth dummy, picking it up by the neck in his jaws and flinging it at the first dummy, sending them both crashing to the floor. He slugged the fourth dummy in the head with such force it remained still, and then he did the same with the first dummy.

Once the last of the four dummies had been slain, the adrenaline rush began to fade. Forzen stood back at the carnage, staring at it with shock as everything came back to him with much more clarity. He had done this. He knew they were just dummies, and it was just training, and there was no way he would ever let himself be so blinded by adrenaline that he would attack another dragon, but he was still greatly unsettled by the carnage that he had created.

The straw in a way represented the wooden dummies' blood, and there was quite a fair bit of it on the ground where the head and torso of the third dummy lay, but other than that, he had done a pretty clean job of killing the dummies. Even Muras seemed impressed. Was it because he had killed them, or because he had done it cleanly with little straw spillage?

Muras spoke up. "Great job, Forzen," the older purple dragon congratulated. "That was nice and quick, and you did it very cleanly. Not much straw on the ground apart from the one head you ripped off; most of the kills came from head trauma. Lots of guys your age and older go for ripping whatever they can get to off, but I think you try and go for the clean approach, and I appreciate that. With the dark dragons we're dealing with however, clean might be a bit difficult seeing as the only way to kill them is to hack into them or behead them, so it'll be a bit messy. But it's good seeing you cautious of spilling blood. It might create a very interesting fighting technique."

Forzen nodded, but something about what Muras said didn't quite sound right. The only way to kill them is to hack into them or behead them. Not necessarily. Forzen had seen some very smart slaves when he had escaped. His escape had been the perfect time to try and fight back, and they didn't want to create anymore mess than they had to. He had seen fire dragons use their element to fry the dark dragons from the inside, lightning dragons filling their bodies with so much electricity that the gems inside them shattered, wind dragons building up air pressure around their opponents so that they got absolutely crushed, without spilling huge amounts of blood.

Forzen decided he should show Muras this. He had electricity after all, and he felt he had a pretty good grasp on how to use it even after only one day of training. Muras said he had learned quickly, and even mentioned that he was faster to learn things than a lot of other younglings were.

"Muras, that's not true," Forzen replied.

"What? I'm sure it'd be an interesting fighting style."

"No, not that! I mean the… the comment you made about being messy when it came to the dark dragons," Forzen explained. "It's possible to be clean about it; I've seen it. I saw the slaves at Dark Peak do it when I escaped. They revolted… they fought back while everyone was distracted by my escape."

Muras rose an eyebrow, unsure whether he could believe Forzen. Forzen sighed, knowing that Muras wouldn't be able to believe him without a demonstration. He'd hoped just saying it was enough, but it wasn't. "Give me a shadowclaw or something, I can show you," Forzen pleaded. "I think I have a strong enough grasp on my lightning element to do so."

"Absolutely not, Forzen! I can't… I won't… give you any dark dragons now! You're not ready!" Muras exclaimed firmly. "I know you're doing well with your lightning element but it's only day two! You're not ready for dark dragons yet!"

"At least let me try."

Muras paused; it looked like he was almost angry at the persuasion and determination in Forzen's voice. Forzen knew this was something he could do. Yes, it would mean he would now be fighting a dragon, but it was one of Spyro's dragons. He was also long overdue the chance to actually beat up one of Spyro's dark dragons; they'd done so much horrific things to so many innocent people. Even him. They beat him on occasion too.

He was everyone's punching back; it was time one of Spyro's dragons became his punching back for once.

Now was the time to let out his pent up emotions… his pent up rage on Spyro's dragons, in a safe way, where the shadowclaw could be called back at any time.

"Fine," Muras spat eventually. "But one shadowclaw. Only one. I'll give you a little one too, to not make it too hard on you."

"Sure, whatever. Do what you want. Just create it already."

"You know the shadowclaws' weakness?"

"Muras, I lived with them! Of course I do! In fact, their anatomy was one of the things Spyro had Jaarsol teach me."

"Tell me anyway," Muras demanded, more out of fear for Forzen than anything.

"The dark gem inside their chest right next to their heart," Forzen groaned with a roll of his eyes.

"Okay, I'm just making sure, Forzen," Muras said, before stepping back slightly, preparing to summon a shadowclaw into the ring. "Let… let me know if you need me to call it back."

And with that, the familiar black-scaled form of the ugly shadowclaws began to materialise in front of Forzen. His heart was racing, but he needed to do this. Both to show Muras that killing a shadowclaw can be done cleanly, and even more so, for himself: to finally kill one of Spyro's demons, and to also build his confidence. He had noticed he'd been really shy and nervous about training earlier this morning. If he was going to be going to school sometime soon, he needed to get rid of his nerves. This was a good way to do so.

Forzen took a deep breath and glared at the snarling shadowclaw that was materialising in front of him. When it had formed completely, it opened its eyes, its glowing purple irises staring into his soul. The shadowclaw was the first to move, lunging towards him with a hideous snarl. As shadowclaws were the size of a regular adult dragon, Forzen was smaller than it, even though Muras had made this shadowclaw a little smaller than normal ones were. The massive size allowed Forzen to dodge the shadowclaw's attack fairly easily, since Forzen was way smaller than it. The shadowclaw was quick to turn around before lunging at him again with a roar.

Forzen wasn't quick enough this time as he was tackled to the ground, the shadowclaw snarling on top of him, saliva dripping down its jaws. Forzen felt fear enter his body. This was literally the real thing. He knew it was artificially created, but it was real. And he could die from doing this.

But he couldn't die. He didn't want to. So he fought back. He let out an electric pulse, throwing the shadowclaw into the air, before it landed on the ground with a heavy thud. Forzen got up and ran to the shadowclaw, which was already on its paws. It breathed a huge stream of shadow fire, and Forzen let out a yelp as he leapt back, trying to avoid the black inferno. But it spread quickly, and soon, it had engulfed Forzen. He cried out in pain, feeling the unbearable heat trying to eat into his body, until he remembered his wind element.

Although he wasn't completely trained in it yet, he was still able to use it, so what was stopping him? He let his lungs fill with air, feeling his essence core begin to feed off the air, before he opened his mouth and let out a gust of wind which pushed back against the fire. It dispersed due to the air currents around Forzen, before he stepped backwards and broke into a sprint, running around the inferno to see the shadowclaw, a little confused at what had just happened.

Forzen leapt at the shadowclaw, clinging onto its neck. He opened his mouth and bit down on the shadowclaw's nape, feeling the metallic tang of blood hit his tongue. He almost gagged, but he ignored the taste as he focused on his lightning breath. He released it, sending the electricity rushing wildly into the bloody puncture wounds he was leaving with his teeth, and into the shadowclaw's body. It growled and collapsed to the floor, writhing. Thrashing.

The young purple dragon held on with all his might, trying to dig in further with his electrified jaws, but the shadowclaw was thrashing so hard that he was struggling to. With a mighty swing of its neck, Forzen was sent flying off the shadowclaw, sending a few small sprays of black blood with him. As well as the wet, grotesque sound of flesh ripping and blood squirting, there was the sound of a shatter. A few spots of purple mist began to float out of the bite wounds in the shadowclaw's neck. Forzen spat some blackened saliva to the side, before he smirked. He was already half-way there.

He staggered to his paws, only to be knocked down with the shadowclaw's tail, as it roared with rage. Forzen was now trapped underneath the shadowclaw's strong paw, its claws curling up, digging into his flesh and drawing crimson blood. Forzen bit back a cry of pain as he breathed a wild beam of lightning at the shadowclaw's face. It snarled as it stepped off him, and Forzen quickly got back to his paws.

The shadowclaw let out a roar as it turned around to stare at him. The flesh around its left eye was swollen and oozing with pus, and gunk hung between its eyelids. The glow in the purple iris was a lot duller than it normally was. The lightning had obviously caused horrendous trauma to the eye, but most of the trauma was invisible due to the eyeball itself being black, as was the blood.

The shadowclaw lunged at Forzen, who launched himself to the side, narrowly missing the shadowclaw's attack. It spun around with a snarl and attacked him again, but missed as Forzen leapt backwards. Forzen retaliated with another beam of lightning, aimed at its chest, and the shadowclaw stumbled forward, but caught itself before it could fall on the ground. Its knees and elbows were trembling furiously, but it was still holding strong, as it let out another roar.

It lunged towards Forzen again, and its paw managed to connect with Forzen's body, sending him flying off to the side, landing on the ground with a heavy thud, followed by a painful slide across the marble ground. The shadowclaw ran towards him and brought its claws down on his flank, drawing more red blood, which began to spill down his flank and onto the floor.

The shadowclaw rose its claw to strike again, but Forzen breathed another beam of lightning at the shadowclaw, aiming for the other eye this time. The shadowclaw howled in pain once more, stepping back. Obviously furious and annoyed at the pain in its eye, it began clawing at its face, before pulling the eye out with a hideous spurt of black blood.

Forzen screwed up his face. He'd only ever seen a dark dragon do something like that once at Dark Peak; he couldn't remember the reason why that fearbringer had cut its tongue out, but it had. And now the shadowclaw standing before him had only one eye, blood streaming down its face and smeared all over the ground where it had discarded the eyeball.

Forzen realised he had been wasting time. The shadowclaw was distracted, for the ancestors' sakes!

He leapt forward, clinging onto the shadowclaw's neck, and allowing more electricity to travel from him into the shadowclaw's body. More and more purple mist began to bellow from the wounds in the back of its neck, before it began to wobble where it stood. There was suddenly a loud shattering sound, and the bellowing purple mist burst from the neck wound, and even began to seep out from between some of the scales in its chest, as the shadowclaw collapsed.

Forzen got off the shadowclaw's corpse, shuddering at how much violence he had just been a part of. The thought disappeared from his mind as he heard Muras gasp, rushing towards the corpse. He stammered with awe, pawing at the shadowclaw to make sure it was dead. Once he was satisfied, he turned to its chest and began to delicately open it up, causing black gore to run profusely out of the chest.

But Muras could see what he was looking for. The sound of the shatter could only have signified one thing. And it was true. Inside the shadowclaw's chest lay a dull crystal with shatters in its geometry; purple mist rose ominously from the cracks inside it, as it lay suspended next to the still heart.

Muras turned to Forzen with a look of shock on his face. "How in the ancestors' names did you manage to do that? The only blood you spilled was the tiny droplets in its neck; ripping out the eye was all its own doing," Muras exclaimed.

"I overloaded its body with electricity, causing the crystal in its chest to surge with too much power. With all the power the crystal has, being overloaded with so much more causes it to swell and shatter, therefore ending the shadowclaw," Forzen explained. "It's similar to if it gets shattered any other way."

Muras, with his jaw dropped, looked to the shadowclaw corpse and then back to Forzen. "How long did it take to figure that out?"

"Like I said, I've seen it before. I saw all the slaves do it. I didn't get much time to stop and properly analyse it but I knew the dark dragons' anatomy well enough to know what was happening to them," Forzen replied. "It's nice and clean, and very easy. I mean… not as easy as hacking into it like a feral creature, I imagine, but fairly easy. The venomfangs and fearbringers are a bit trickier, given how deadly the venomfangs are, making it harder to get close to them, and once fearbringers put you in a fear coma, you're basically in their claws. Their essence crystals are also in different places, but the idea is essentially the same."

Muras nodded slowly, taking in the information. "I'd better let Cynder know sometime. That would be a great help to her and the army," he said, and Forzen shrunk in on himself with embarrassment.

However, this movement caused the claw wound on his flank to rub together, and Forzen winced with pain, sitting himself down on his haunches and bringing a paw to his flank. Muras was quick to notice. "Are you alright?" he exclaimed quickly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Forzen replied. "I've been through worse pain. Just need a bit of cleaning up and a bandage and I'm good."

"We do have… red healing gems in here?" Muras murmured, gesturing to the corner of the training room to where the red gems were stored.

"Oh. Sorry, I forgot," Forzen murmured. "Jaarsol and I never had much at our disposal. Bandages were hard to come by too as there were no leaves. We cleaned any wounds I ended up getting with the water that grew in the ground between the rocks, but it didn't help very much."

"Well, you have them now, and I think it would be good if we started using them," Muras explained. "They're over there in the corner. Go heal yourself up and then we might call it a day."

Forzen just nodded, before he stood and slowly made his way over to the chest in the back corner of the training room, opening it. The red light that came from inside blinded him for a moment, before he finally saw just how many red gems were inside it, gawking at the sight.

Once he recovered from his surprise at the sheer amount of red gems there were, he reached forward and grabbed a few, holding them against his wounds, feeling them close slowly. He sighed with relief as he took in the warm, soft sensation; it felt good not to have to deal with wounds for so long.

The memories began to fill his head again.

Forzen growled with annoyance, slapping himself in the face to try and get rid of them. The memories always came up out of nowhere, and Forzen hated it. The feeling of helplessness swept over him, as he remembered every punch, ever kick, every claw that raked down his body. Rocks had been thrown at him too, and he remembered the heavy weight that had been on top of him.

He whimpered, before closing his eyes tight and shaking his head side-to-side. He slapped himself once more, the memories finally stopped, and he was back in the now. His racing heart took a little longer to calm down, but finally he did.

He sat there for a little while, before standing up and closing the chest of red gems when he was ready. He made his way back to Muras, who Forzen could tell was clearly wanting to ask him if he was alright, as he usually did; it was an annoying question at this point. Yet, Muras didn't voice the question, which Forzen was thankful for. The younger purple dragon just gave a smile at his mentor, which Muras could see through, but he didn't press on it.

Finally, they turned and made their way out of the training arena, calling their first day of training finished.

Forzen believed that it had actually gone fairly well. It went… way better than he was expecting.

Another Forzen and Muras chapter, this time we get to see their first training session together. I quite liked writing this one lol, hope you all enjoy it!

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Agwa: Yup, last chapter was a nice change of pace, and like this one, I quite enjoyed writing it. As much as I love writing the really tense scenes, these slightly lighter ones have been fun too. Glad you've been liking it :)

Dragon of Mystery:There's always gotta be the calm before the storm hehe; there'll be more of this too so don't you worry. Very much been enjoying this dynamic with Forzen and Muras and I'm looking forward to writing way more of them :) The Cynder part of Muras' prayer was also a last minute addition lol, I didn't plan it but I really felt like it fit, especially with how concerned Muras is regarding her and Forzen. Really glad it worked well for the scene!

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Chapter 7 should hopefully be out soon once it gets beta-read, as well as Chapter 8 since I've finished that one too (I've been on a roll with writing lol). Next chapter for GEM is also waiting to be beta-read and I've started another oneshot that hopefully won't take too long to write.

Have a great rest of your day everyone, see you in the next chapter!