The Path of Ascension 4 (The Path of Ascension #4)

by C. Mantis

She wants to train us not watch us poop.” Matt, still unsettled, snarked, “I don’t know. Maybe she has a notebook about how we can poop better.” * * * Luna looked into her piles of notebooks and threw two out.

Matt reached Liz and Aster and saw them in different spots of the burpee. Under other circumstances, it would have been funny to see a fox doing a push-up and jumping as high as she could, but Matt was too tired to laugh.

Or he did until Aster barreled into the room. She honed onto his location and burrowed into his chest, complaining, “The ice cream rabbits were all made out of sand! It’s not fair! I want actual ice cream rabbits!”

Matt, Liz, and Aster seemed to exasperate the Tier 24 man when most of their tactics were, ‘Matt goes in first, and Liz and Aster kill anything he hadn’t managed to.’

Luna turned her attention to Aster as the little fox half-heartedly wrestled with a tiny beetle. She yelled, “Buck up, or I’ll wash your fur in red ink that can only be removed with hot water!” That turned the fox’s effort into overdrive.

Anyway, welcome to my humble abode, I suppose?” Luna grabbed his outstretched arm and said, “Your gloves are still covered in the ant’s venom. Don’t kill the kids.”

The older evolved beast convinced Aster to hide the sword in the fluffiness of her tail, and save it for sneak attacks, which gave her a bit of unpredictability. No enemy expected Aster to turn and slice their leg off with her floof.

Their delving eventually devolved into the three of them starting a contest of who could come up with the best monologue line that fit with an endless stream of [Fireball]s. Aster insisted that she won with ‘I just beat you with the worst elemental type. Imagine what would happen if I used a real spell.’

“When you get a splitting headache, don’t complain to me.” Matt laughed, “I won’t get a headache because I already have one. Ha!”

Miles, on the other hand, said it tasted good, but not exceptional. Matt thought he was messing with him until Miles shrugged and repeated his earlier statement. Liz laughed so hard, she nearly fell out of her chair when Matt tried to get Miles to visit a healer for his clearly broken taste buds.

Matt finally gave up and grumbled to Liz, “Well, that’s just not nice at all. They aren’t even offering to share.” Liz grinned and hooked her arm in his, saying, “If you want to play with the other children, I can get you your own ice cream.”