"Hurry up! We're on a time limit, Ryker. You've gotta be in shape for Preliminaries!" The door did hardly anything to muffle her. "Hey—Nicki! Get ready for school!"
Ryker couldn't make out what her sister, Nicki, said back. Apparently Yuri had woken up, gotten ready and tried this whole sequence twice already. Ryker couldn't remember.
Damn that massage really put me out... He thought. finally crawling out of bed.
He could hear Nicki and Yuri bickering down the hall while he changed. After throwing on something decent, making up Yuri's bed and opening his phone to a whopping zero messages, he stepped into the hallway.
Lo and behold, there was Yuri and Nicki. Nicki was an odd mix of her parents. Coal black skin, golden eyes with slit pupils and obsidian black goat horns. Her build itself was a spitting image of Yuri aside from her having ever present horns unlike her sister and dark skin.
"Why can't I come with you? I really wanna see Ryker fight!" Nicki whined, putting on her usual begging face.
"Because—" Yuri started.
"Because your sister said no, Nicki." He walked past Yuri, pecking her lips before continuing. "You'll get to watch me use all of my spells at the Preliminaries. I promise."
This seemed to satisfy her for now. She hugged his leg, her little black horns rubbing against him.
"Where are you going now?" She asked.
"We're gonna clear a Rift together. I have to work on my hand-to-hand and Ryker needs to fix his spell casting before prelims." Yuri added, taking Ryker's hand. "We won't be long."
She hugged her little sister, kissed her on the cheek and before either Nicki or Ryker could protest she rushed him out the door.
"Hey! Slow down!" He stopped at the bottom of the porch stairs. "We didn't eat or get ready at all."
"That's your fault. Should've woken up the first time, Eiría mou " She continued rushing him along. "And it's fine either way. We're clearing an easy rift to practice your spell casting!"
"But I'm already good at it. I can cast all of my spells with just the name." He said, as if reasoning with a demon woman would work.
"I don't care! Cassian is casting Intermediate spells by just their names and nine spells simultaneously! And he is the main problem! That asshole wants you out of the tournament in round one and I don't want to bet those scummy organizers won't match you up just to make it happen!"
"...There's no room for me to argue against this, huh?" Ryker weakly laughed, scratching the side of his face.
"You wouldn't if you could." Yuri said smugly.
"Well at least you're self—" Yuri's phone vibrated in her pocket. "—Eh, you gotta take that?"
The phone screen blinked to life, a bombastic circus theme, picked by Yuri, blaring as someone's ringtone.
"Hera..?" Yuri's thumb tapped 'answer', sighing indignantly before bringing the phone to her ear. "What do you want, yapper? I'm busy."
After a short silence from the end, Hera's voice came through.
"Hey, Yuri! We need a third for this Intermediate dungeon in South Town. Two of our trainees ducked out!"
"Why would trainees duck out right after appraisal?" Ryker whispered.
"What, really? This is freakishly good luck! We'll be right there!" Yuri exclaimed, slightly less disgusted.
"We? You're not alone?" She sounded excited. "Ryker, I bet."
"Who else would ever? Who else would I ever go dungeon crawling with?" She leaned back against Ryker, getting up on the balls of her feet so he could hear.
"Good. That's perfect, actually. We're in Southtown by the old Town Hall." Hera chirped, hanging up right after.
***
"HUH?! Hell no! Get that freak out of here!" A girl screamed, her eyes wide with terror. Three people behind her seemed to share the same sentiment, mixes of anger and terror washing over their faces.
"What did you say you dirty–" Yuri wasted no time, neither did Ryker.
His hand shot forward, covering her mouth. She cursed the young woman, swinging wildly while Ryker just shook his head.
"We are NOT training with that monster!" The young lady demanded.
"Yeah I am not letting that psycho near me. He'll kill us!" A tall, muscular guy added from behind her. Ryker recognized him from high school.
This annoying fucker again? Wasn't he gonna go study in China?
"Nice to see you too, Larry." Ryker joked, letting out a deep, exasperated sigh. Beijing Technical didn't take you?"
"Of course not! They only care about fancy bloodlines and ridiculous Interventions out there!" He said, sounding like he was about to cry.
I'm used to people being scared but this is ridiculous.
"Those Chinese sorcerers whooped your ass in preliminaries, didn't they?" Ryker said, Yuri pulling his hand away from her mouth now that she'd calmed down.
"Of course they did–there was a Helios King's Candidate at Beijing technical too! He's stupid powerful. I don't even think Cassian could touch em!" The large man awkwardly fumbled with the sleeves of his robe. "That's not important though. Why are you where? Huh?"
"Yuri." Ryker said flatly, gesturing to the wary crowd.
"Of course, Eiría mou." She took a few graceful steps forward with a mocking expression. She stopped right in front of the tall idiot. "Logan."
"Yes, ma'am?" The tall man squeaked, obediently, a hint of fear shifting his expression.
"Ryker's going to train with us in that dungeon. And I don't want to hear a peep of shit out of you. Any of you! Okay?" Yuri's smile was deceptively wide and almost devilishly sharp. Whenever she made a warning to anyone, it was only once.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll shut up…" Logan whimpered, eyes finding the floor in defeat.
Yuri cocked her head to the side, staring deep into the girl's eyes. "And you, Lauren?"
"Yes, ma'am." The loud girl's whisper came out brittle, averting her gaze. "J-..just, please, keep him away from us. Please."
"Gladly! He's gonna be all mine in there!" She turned around and planted herself back next to Ryker.
"Could you throw your weight around a little more?" Ryker let the words slip out, his expression a mix of bewilderment and resignation.
"What? They know who I am. It's only good that they learn not to piss me off." Her back felt red hot against his chest, like reaching too close to the fireplace in winter. He couldn't see it, but one of her horns had manifested from her forehead.
"You're burning up." Ryker murmured, unphased by Yuri's heat. His eyes narrowed from behind her. "That horn better not be out." He accused, reflexively reaching around her head to pinch her retracting crimson horns between his fingers. "Ow! Stop it…" She whined, immediately flailing in response before her body went limp like jelly. "You know what that does to me–"
Ryker raised an annoyed eyebrow. "Good. Logan and Lauren never bothered me in the slightest, but your display sure did. Now can we go find Hera? I'd prefer not to run into the other students before I get her to vouch for me."
"No need Bozos! I'm right here!" Her voice echoed from a roof top. Before Ryker and Yuri could even react, a thin sheet of ice formed under their feet and both of them hit the floor.
"Never mind, Yuri. Keep the horn out." He grunted, pushing them both back up to their feet with a one handed thrust.
"Heraaaa!" Yuri charged her legs for a leap, ocean and magenta toned mana igniting around her.
"Wait wait wait! I've got good news!" She hopped off the roof and skipped over with a smug little grin. "I already ran it by the others! We're gonna clear this dungeon when it opens in an hour. And uhh…they're willing to let you in as long as I take you in as my personal trainee."
"Okay. And what about Yuri?" He asked.
"We lost two trainees, apparently they read the rules to the preliminaries and ducked out. So now we're training you two." She said, an air of excitement about her that contrasted with her words.
"Okay…so we're just your second hand picks then?" Yuri added, visibly bothered.
"Don't be like that! You don't even like me anyway." She rapped Ryker's shoulder, side-eyeing Yuri as she did. "Don't act like you'd rather be around me than anybody else."
Yuri looked like she was about to explode.
She's asking for a slap in the mouth. I gotta stop this…
Ryker grabbed Hera's wrist and gently placed a hand over Yuri's chest. "Behave, you two. Let's just get this dungeon started so I can learn something."
"Please." Yuri murmured, doing an awful job at hiding her jealousy. "And quit touching him."
***
Upon arriving at what looked to be a crack in the universe itself, Ryker noticed Logan and Lauren had perched themselves on the hood of a rusty car from the old world. Some two-hundred years ago when these dungeons first showed up.
"Uhhh." Hera stopped in front of them. "Where the hell did Luke and Paolo go? Why aren't they here?"
"They ditched us. Paolo said something like 'that stupid girl brought more bullshit to an already bullshit mission' and just left." Logan said. He didn't seem to take it very well.
"THEY SAID WHAT?! I'll have their heads!" Hera threw her hands up, her staff fabricating in her palms. "Those entitled little pricks!" She huffed, then caught her breath. "Fine. This is fine. I can handle the four of you just fine." She whirled around to face the Dungeon entrance. "It's not that strong anyway. I could clear it on my own if it comes down to it."
"So uhm…what's the gameplan?" Ryker asked, leaning on the rusty vehicle.
"I'll be escorting you four through this dungeon. Alone, yes. But I'm two tiers above this whole thing so I'm confident we'll be fine." She tapped her staff twice, a pulse of electric purple mana engulfing her. "I will step in first to clear the opening room, then you follow me in. Wait a few seconds before you jump in."
The four of them nodded, Logan in particular steeling himself for his first dungeon.
"You'll be fine, Logan. Hera wouldn't do this if she wasn't sure we'd be okay." Ryker said, his voice soft and steady. "And even if she messes everything up you've got the Leviathan's reincarnation to protect you." He joked.