Day at the beach

"Aunty Mila, can we go down to the beach?" Rayla asked as she finished her last bowl of food. "You have to wait a while, you can't go in the water after eating that much" then she said, "I have something that you can do though".

"I wanted to train, I still wanted to fight in the Sky academy tournament" Joey rebutted, Mila's expression fell somewhat dim "Do you really need to participate?".

"Of course! I need to find my uncle, I know he's on 9 Skies, I know he must have some thought process, besides I don't want to stay weak forever" Mila's expression looked sad then did a 180 "Good! That's the spirit, I'll help you train and make sure you win for me ok?" Mila felt it was good that he had that much drive.

"It's a deal, You'll need to come to watch me beat all of them first" Joey smacked his muscles with a cheeky grin. "Let's go down to the beach, I will show you more martial arts." The new family finished eating and eventually made their way into the beach.

Joey noticed Mila seemed overly aware of her surroundings and made sudden jolts in different directions that made him wonder if she was sensing something that he wasn't able to. They were eventually able to get set up.

The crystal clear blue seawater and the smell of the ocean made it a nice day to go to the beach. It didn't take long before Rayla ran over into the ocean and started to play by herself.

"Let's get somewhere safe" Mila led Joey over to another part of the ocean while keeping an eye on Rayla. Then Mila looked at him then asked "Explain what happened with Stephenson".

Joey expected a question about what he wanted to learn; this was the opposite. Mila seemed very serious about the question and he took his time to explain. Joey explained his time up until the fight.

Right, when he was explaining what happened, Mila's eyes opened in shock when he mentioned the pill Stephenson ate, "Joey, describe to me in detail how that pill looked. Don't miss one".

Thinking back he never took too much note of the pill so it was hard for him to remember easily, "It was a light colour, maybe some variation of white" Joey then went silent "or was it light blue?"

"Joey! I'm serious" Mila looked glared at him eagerly and Joey frantically said, "It was light green, it wasn't very bright and after he ate it he seemed a lot stronger, precise and his blade carried a strange shockwave power and it went well with his weapon".

Mila went into deep thought when she heard this, "It seems to be some sort of pill that forces awakening, It a breakthrough through pill because the pain threshold is low and bearable, My guess is that he took the pill to force his 3rd awakening, that would explain his power" Mila was thinking deeply of something that worried her.

"Kid you got some serious bone on you, I don't know which stage of awakening Stephenson was but it had to be more than you, good job" Mila complimented him as she patted his back. Joey felt rather cocky after the compliment and replied "Lightwork, wasn't anything too hard"

"I bet you were barely hanging on, but don't you feel some type of way about killing someone?" Mila noticed Joey was impartial to killing and seemed that he had no particular trauma toward blood. She never knew much about Joey and his Uncle but he felt that this was somewhere good to start to find out more about him as a person.

It is from my Uncle, when we were butchering he would talk about the hunters behind their backs. The hunters would always be upset whenever one of their friends died, he called them weak and said "Death will only follow those who fear it" Joey said in a mocking voice.

"Blood never really had that much effect on me mentally, It makes me wonder if my grandfather did this on purpose. Normal children aren't used to blood, sometimes I wonder what he was thinking by growing me the way he did" Joey had been thinking of his Uncle's actions and they all seemed too weird.

Mila thought it was weird too and asked about his parents, Joey replied saying he doesn't know much about them, he only remembered his dad's appearance, as for his mother he doesn't remember anything of her."Maybe this kid's family is involved in something big, I don't think Joey is a normal boy. His parents might be alive…" Mila inwardly sighed "I guess it's never simple for me, Now I won't ever get the chance" Mila had a wry smile as she shook her head.

"Nevermind, what do you want to learn? I will teach you anything, only the best and ask what you don't understand.

Joey was eager to learn to fix his own shortcomings "My movements are sluggish, I think I should be faster. Sometimes I wish my thrusts were faster, that way I could have finished the fight with Stephenson when I first saw his smug face.

I also need to learn how to move faster like really faster. I need to be able to run circles around my opponent. If I'm able to get that faster and find a way to thrust out 3 thrusts at once" while Joey was training within the past week he was able to reflect on the fight with Stephenson and see his mistakes.

It was easy to think that there were ways he could improve on making his fighting techniques better. He thought if it was Mila she would have killed him the moment she reached into the room, saving him a lot of time. Joey felt actually really guilty because he felt he took too long to finish Stephenson. He thought maybe, just maybe, he would have saved the trouble of getting stabbed through the gut, she never showed anything wrong with her after a week of seclusion but he had a strange feeling it was not as simple as it seemed.

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