Roy continues to stare at the hammer till the man coughs to interrupt his concentration

“Uh, Roy my eyes are up here lil’ brother.”

Roy’s eyes shift upward to the man’s face and frowns.

“Do you see this armor? I made this, no single plasma round from a cannon’s gonna pierce this, I thought you knew old man.” He begins to pace to the side tapping his chest plate.

“Oh really? Rounds just bounce off you huh?”

“YES! THEY BOUNCE OFF! What of it? You sure you wouldn’t get tossed around by a pygmy in your old age?”

A vein sprouts on the man’s head. Old age? He stomps down the slope, the exo-armor shelling his legs activate balancing his approach. He’s bigger the closer he gets, it’s like he’s half giant or something. The woman thinks to herself.

“Well firstly why did it take you so many punches to pacify this fucker? If it was me. I wouldn’t even waste punches on this chump.”

He walks past Roy bumping his shoulder. The man reaches down grabbing Billy by the hair lifting the large man over his head grabbing his leg with his other hand

“you’re supposed to throw garbage out. Not punch on it.”

He throws Billy several feet away into the base of a tree causing the man more discomfort and pain.

The man wipes his hands together “That’s how your supposed to deal with that, young man.”

He turns to Roy and notices that his eyes are still on his hammer.

“oy! You, my eyes are up here. God, what did I do to deserve a little shit like you, cant respect your elders. You know I would of killed to have a mentor like me when I was your age.”

Roy looks up to the man, they both look at each other sternly till Roy pops a smile, extending his hand to shake.

“Can you even call yourself a mentor all you and Brian did was beat the shit out of me, Bel.”

Bel? The woman’s eyes pop in surprise. This is Belvin “Iron Hammer” Belfort 3x Belmouth Arena Champion and 5x Strong man champion. She remembered a time when she was not much younger than she was now, on the road her and her parents would stop at Inns and the most exciting part would be when she could watch the competitions on the Lucid Net. He was a renowned fighter and even a better humanitarian whenever Derelicts were near, he would never hide behind his celebrity status but be with first responders to handle the mess. She admired him; it was ironic to herself that she did not recognize him. Belvin had retired a little less than a decade ago and was sporting a grizzlier look.

“Long time no see, my bad I always get hypnotized by that damn hammer, something about it just draws me in. Must be because its mine.”

“Yeah right kid, you couldn’t even carry it but it makes me worry your gonna rack me for it.”

“haha, id be afraid to fight me to.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I taught you alot of what you know.”

“yeah. Let’s say some.”

They both are still smiling at each other but slowly this handshake begins to intensify and turns into a battle to squeeze the other’s hand till they submit.

“I see you’ve gotten a lot stronger in these 2 years I’ve been gone from the Belmouth.”

“That apprenticeship is hard work.”

“Harder than holding the line against B Ranks in the Selfin Turmoil?”

Belvin begins to get the upper hand in the competition but Roy doesn’t waver

“D Ranks are more of handful especially because they travel in larger hoards.”

“Harder than taking on several rogues?”

“Have you seen these rogues out here lately? You see these guys, not much of a challenge.”

“Harder than dealing with Martha”

Roy screams in pain as Belvin clenches harder on his hand prompting Roy to submit then the both laugh hysterically.

“Yeah well Martha is worse than an S-rank. I don’t even know how you survived that marriage.”

“The divorce was the only way to survive.”

They both laugh harder; the woman stands closely confused by the sudden change of demeanor of the two. While they’re distracted Guff crawls over to Billy slapping him awake, once he’s up Guff commands him to pick up Kyle and make there retreat running back towards the forest but not before Guff kicks over Roy’s Levi Wagon knocking over his abundance of Ore.

“So long suckers! Don’t let us catch you next time!”

Roy gasps at the Ore that is now scattered over the valley floor. Angrily he balls his fast and begins to stomp in the direction Guff went to but Belvin stops him.

“What? you’re going to chase them all the way back in the forest?”

Roy thinks about it for a second then calms down slightly and begins to gather up his ore again.

“I’m not taking all that ore in the Buggy it’ll weigh it down.”

“We can make 2 trips?”

“Not a chance.”

“Let me borrow the bug to do it?”

“Last time I let you borrow the Buggy your so-called upgrades made the engine blow up.”

“that’s your fault, I told you to go easy on the acceleration!”

Belvin punches the top of Bens head

“No one asked you to do the upgrades!”

Belvin turns his head to the woman that was approaching him.

“Well hey there little lady. Hopefully my hardheaded protégé didn’t frighten you or ask you for money.”

Behind Belvin, Roy is holding his finger to his mouth asking her to stay quiet about how he approached her.

“What’s this you got there?”

Belvin inquired about the small journal book that the woman was holding.

“It’s an Autograph book Mr. Belvin sir.” She bows her head in respect a custom native to the far northern Nation of Izileath. “Please sir would you please sign this?!?” she stared upwards stars in her eyes.

A wide smile crossed Belvin’s face as he flexes his large muscles trying to impress further “Sure I would love to sign your book young lady!” he switches stances

Roy rolls his eyes, and he continues to pack most of his Ore, silently mocking Belvin.

“Wow you have a lot of champions in here even retired legends like Kent “The Buckle” Muller, Sean Xiao, &-“his face turns pale.

Roy smiles. “Its sounds like you just read someone’s name that starts with S!”

“SHUT UP YOU! So now who am I making this out to?” He prepares his pen.

“Make it out to Taylor Lee, your biggest fan.”

“Sure thing!” a few seconds pass and Belvin drops the question that was on his and Roy’s mind. “So, Taylor where is your Edgin Bodyguard aren’t you transporters supposed to have at least 1?” He hands her the book back and she grabs it fighting the sadness in her eyes.

“She’s gone.”

Roy frowns, standing and turning around to slap Belvin in the back of the head.

“Stop asking depressing questions and help me carry this stuff up to the buggy!”

“Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t carrying all this!”

Moments pass and now they are all in the buggy making their way to Tereliva which is only a few miles off to the entrance. Belvin’s eyes are cut to Taylor in the backseat, he feels bad for her he sees her bodyguards death is weighing heavy on her then he looks at Roy who is still staring at Belvin’s Ohgun’s Craft hammer resting on the floor of the buggy.

“Still nothing, does it even act like it wants to active?”

“Nope. Same story as everyone before me. Get the hammer, hammer don’t work. But You know why I keep it unlike everyone else.”

“To show these Nims what real grit is.”

“To show these Nims what real grit is.”

They say at the same time. Roy chimes in after.

“Let me hold It, it might work for me!”

“I told you what you have to do to get it from me, 1 out of 10 fights. You have to win 1 out of 10 fights or else you can’t have it, ever and remind me what number are we on?”

“Nine.”

“Do you want to fight now? Because I can pull over right now.”

“No, I still have some training to do before I fight you!”

“Yeah you do, you can’t fight me if it takes you that long to fight one bulk headed idiot in a gang of delinquents.”

“Hey old man I was going easy on them!”

“Did you check if any of them had bounties because I didn’t see a signal flare fired alerting the Patrol. So, you must not of cared for a reward.”

Roy looks out of the window of the roofless buggy at the vast valley. Belvin is displeased.

“An Alpha Class Waver too stupid to get out of his own way that’s rich I thought guys like you all were supposed to be smart.”

Roy suddenly remembers the Foresight he had gotten in the forest.

“Belvin, you’ve been in the city for a couple of weeks have you heard of anything about a Derelict hoard in the area I ran into some D-coyotes that I can’t stop thinking about.”

“Hmm, D-Coyots? That strange a Derelict would have to already be in a form that could catch a coyote and there aren’t any animals over here that I’ve hunted faster than that. But to answer your question I did over hear some guards talking about a mining town a hundred miles south that went dark they’re thinking about sending the Fall-Father and his men to check it.”

“Whoa, one of the Fathers are here?”

“Not yet he’s coming back from the West either tonight or tommorow, the war hero himself and all his self-righteousness.”

“That’s heavy, all I’ve known is the GrimFather in the East and he was a real asshole. Sounds like it’s a trend.”

“Yeah well you know better than to talk this way inside of the walls, Valkin folks are real patriotic.”

“Oh, is someone getting more considerate of others now?”

Belvin glares over at Roy, then looks back at the sleeping Taylor,

“You know once we get to Tereliva we’re gonna have a serious discussion about why you’re here right?”

Roy looks over at Belvin then towards the boundless water fall and the water that leads deeper into the Southlands.

“Good, I was hoping for that.”

To Be Continued…