34 Gray Gray

After a long day, darkness soon enveloped Ahn Bayari and many of the traders started going home. As usual, Savyrran waited behind until Naama was done so she could escort the old woman back to her home. Ever since those bandits attacked the old woman, Savyrran had insisted on personally escorting her home every evening.

Naama lived outside the market, and soon, they reached her home. Savyrran bade her goodbye as she got ready to get back to the train station. But Naama called her back and handed her two silver bracelets.

Savyrran just looked at the old woman in confusion, wondering why she was giving her two communicators.

"Take them. They are already imbued with my essence." Naama insisted, grabbing Savyrran's rough hands and shoving the bracelets into them. "Give one to your brother and keep one for yourself. At least that way I may be able to contact you from time to time."

Savyrran had never owned a communicator. Her parents did not even own any due to how expensive it was. They needed to save every last of their money for more important things like food and the children's education. Since Naama sold things like that, Savyrran had learned a lot about the use of these everyday artifacts like the space rings and communicators. Thus, she knew that even the lowest grade of communicators cost around five hundred royals while the highest grades may be as high as five thousand royals. From her financial point of view, this was too much money to spend on something she did not even need.

She did not know anyone outside Coast Town and if she wanted to talk to someone, she could just go to their home. But now that she and Ovandarrak were travelling to Hill City, perhaps, having communicators was not a bad idea. But then Savyrran remembered even if she had a communicator, it would still be impossible for her to use it.

"Thank you very much. My brother will really like them, but I don't think they will do me any good without my essence."

Communicators are imbued with the holders essence and the essence of those they intend to contact. The essence within the communicators made it possible to communicate with a person's soul either telepathically or by projection of one's soul. Without Savyrran essence, there was no way she could use a communicator. Luckily for her, even though space rings were made using soul energy just like the communicators, space rings only required the use of one's blood to be activated.

"It doesn't matter, you can still have it. There may be a chance to manifest after all. And once that happens, you can put your communicator to good use. In the meantime, if you want to contact me, you can have your brother do it."

Savyrran had already made peace with the fact that she may never manifest an essence nor awaken a soul armos. But in other to appease Naama and keep her from talking more, she nodded in agreement. Savyrran smiled at the old woman she had come to grow very fond of. Even though she could not wait to go to Royal Dream Higher Academy, she still knew that she would miss everyone. She put one of the silver bracelets on her left wrist and kept the other one within her space ring. Then she bade the old woman goodbye and made her way back to Coast Town.

…....

Back at the Thark household, something extraordinary was happening. Well, it was not really extraordinary since it was bound to happen to everyone once they were fifteen. But what made it extraordinary was that this incident was marked as the stage of adulthood in one's life. Once a person awakened their soul armos, they were no longer considered to be children.

Thus, Fani and Wikka were grinning from ear to ear, as they proudly watched their son awaken his new soul armos. The family was gathered at the back yard of the house, since that was where Fani and Wikka had heard the booming sound come from. There they saw Ovandarrak kneeling on the sandy ground and he was staring at something with longing and adoration.

Upon getting closer, they saw that it was a small gray dog with green eyes. The dog's eyes were of the same shade as Ovan's essence. Ovandarrak gently patted the dog's head as the animal nudged its muzzle closer into its master's lap.

"Amazing. You awakened a beast-type soul armos." Fani beamed. His face could not hide the pride that was coursing through him. Wikka could not stop smiling either. To be honest, Fani had not expected that Ovandarrak's soul armos would be a simple dog given how he had manifested the strongest essence in the whole town. Even Mayor Danjo's beast-type soul armos was far more intimidating than this even though the mayor was a yellow user.

But upon seeing how Ovandarrak's usually icy eyes had drastically thawed while carrying the adorable little dog close to his chest, Fani's doubt evaporated. As long as his son loved his soul armos, he could not complain.

"Is everything alright?" A familiar voice snapped them back out of their little family reunion. All heads turned towards the direction of the voice only to see Savyrran leaning against the wall of the house.

"Oh, you are back." Wikka said. She beckoned to her daughter to come closer to them. "I'm so glad you are here. Come and see."

When Savyrran returned, she did not see anyone in the house. Fani was not in the workshop, Ovandarrak was not in the library and Wikka was nowhere to be found. Thus, Savyrran decided to look at the only place left; the back yard.

Savyrran walked to her mother, wondering what was going on with everyone. But once she saw the small gray dog being closely held by Ovandarrak, Savyrran's eyes bulged and a smile radiated from her face. "Wow. Such a beautiful little dog. Where did it come from?"

"That's my soul armos." Ovandarrak said casually without taking his eyes of the little dog.

"Really. That is amazing. I told you it was only a matter of time until your soul armos awakened, didn't I?" Savyrran laid a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Now we can go to Hill City without any worries."

Ovandarrak looked at his sister for the first time that evening and then smiled at her. Then he nodded.

"So does it have a name yet?" Savyrran asked. She secretly wondered if the dog had told Ovandarrak its own name. Perhaps, had his his soul armos evolved like Kasko? She hoped that was the case. Ovandarrak did not like fighting so the stronger his soul armos, the less likely it would be for others to bully him. Not that she would simply stand by and let that happen either.

"Well, I'm thinking of calling him Dog." He simply blurted out in all seriousness.

Everyone else shouted, "WHAT!" Fani and Wikka could not keep themselves from laughing while Savyrran was simply speechless.

Even the dog suddenly lifted its small head at the sound of such an awful name. If one looked at it closely, they could see how almost teary the green eyes of the dog was.

"Seriously, brother? Maybe Ma and Pa should have named you Boy."

"But Pa named his soul armos Vibration. And that is literally what it is."

"So you are literally naming your dog, Dog. You do realize your soul armos is a beast-type and not a weapon-type, right?"

"Do you have a better name in mind then?" Ovandarrak stood on his feet and challenged his sister with his eyes. Savyrran only grinned mischievously, and for a moment, the boy regretted asking her sister such a question. Of course, she had a better name in mind.

"Of course I do, little brother. Watch and learn. May I hold him?"

Without hesitation, Ovandarrak handed the little dog over to his sister. "You have always wanted a dog as a boy. Aren't you lucky that your soul armos is a dog? Since it is under the rare class, I don't think it is an ordinary dog."

"That makes sense." Fani said. At first he had worried there was nothing too special about the dog. But this is a rare class soul armos they were talking about. It might not be as ordinary as they thought.

"It's gray through and through. So how about the name Gray Gray?"

Wikka chuckled with amusement. "How is that even better than Dog?"

"Gray Gray it is." Ovandarrak quickly confirmed. Wikka and Fani glanced at each other as if passing a secret message. Being parents of these two, they had come to learn that you simply do not get between them. Even if they argued or bickered with each other, they would end up coming back together even stronger than before. Fani felt sorry for whoever would provoke any of them. Harming one of them was equivalent to harming both of them.

Thus, they knew that since Ovandarrak had agreed to the name Gray Gray, then that was final.

"See. He likes his name already." Savyrran said. "Welcome to the family little Gray Gray. In case you ever learn to speak, you can call me Aunt Savy, okay?" Then she kissed Gray Gray's forehead. The dog closed its big green eyes and then made small adorable noises.

"Woof… woof…. woof…" [Aunt Savy. Thank you for saving me from such a terrible name. Gray Gray is perfect].

"Hey, what do you mean a terrible name? Dog was a great name too." Ovandarrak said, glaring at the small gray dog who was affectionately nuzzling itself into Savyrran's chest. This little traitor, selling him off like that.

"Ovan, are you talking to the dog?" Savyrran asked.

"It's a soul armos." Fani said. "Beast-type soul armos can communicate with their owners even in their primordial states unlike the weapon-type."

"That's amazing. Now you have a little friend to talk to, little brother. Such an adorable little dog."

"Woof… Woof…" [See, Master. That's how you adore a dog. Auntie knows best."]

Ovandarrak stared daggers at Gray Gray, not believing the sass of a newly awakened soul armos. The little traitor.

"Woof.. Woof…" [You know I can hear your thoughts, right?]