"You know, I didn't think you'd actually build a pool there." Tucker shook his head as he reached down to help Jordan out of the empty pool.

After slipping several times, Jordan finally managed to clamber out.

"Pretty gnarbuckle, right?" Jordan grinned proudly as he turned back to look at his masterpiece.

Tucker seemed at a loss for a moment.

"Gnarbuckle?" Tucker raised an eyebrow at Jordan.

"It's kind of like a mix between gnarly and buckles."

"Buckles? Dude, that's defenitely not in any dictionary."

"It's a word." Jordan said defiantly, crossing his arms.

"Whatever you say, ya weirdo." Tucker shrugged, not convinced in the slightest.

Jordan ignored him as he stared happily at his pool.

Things were looking up today.

The house was nearly finished, he had built his dream pool, and so far hadn't had any pains bad enough to cause a seizure, which was good in his books.

"So how are you going to fill it?"

Jordan froze.

He hadn't thought about that, but now that he was, it seemed nearly impossible. He looked down at the ocean ruefully as it now seemed impossibly far away. And anyways, that water was salt, and he was not in to that.

"I didn't- I don't-" Jordan stuttered hopelessly, stopping as he noticed Tucker's amused face.

"What?" Jordan demanded, his good mood fading.

"Ah, nothing." Tucker waved him off. "Look, don't worry about the water, I got you."

"How?"

"I have my ways." Tucker grinned.

Jordan wanted to argue, but Tucker's grin was infectuous, making it impossible for Jordan to stay mad.

"But you're surprisingly quite handy." Tucker complimented, admiring the pool. The side facing the ocean was a glass panel, and the rest was made of pearly-white marble.

"Well, having to build your own home from scratch gives you some expreience." Jordan chuckled. "Though here, the resources are much more plentiful."

Tucker nodded, looking around quietly. Jordan shuffled his feet quietly. He still wasn't used to being around people ao much. He had grown up practically alone, and now he never seemed to have a moment to hisself. It was annoying, but at the same time, kind of nice.

"Well, I'm off to get some more wood." Tucker said suddenly.

Jordan nodded absentmindedly as Tucker began to walk off, suddenly wondering how Tucker was planning to carry up so much water.

"Actually." Tucker stopped, causing Jordan to turn around. "How about you come with me? I'd like to show you something."

"Well.."

"It'll be..gnarbuckle." Tucker grimaced slightly as he said the word.

"You're learning." Jordan teased, grinning.

"You know what, nevermind, I'll just go by mys-"

"Okay okay, sorry." Jordan grinned, holding up his arms in surrender.

Tucker smiled and turned away, leading Jordan through the house to the front door. Tucker yelled to Sonja where they were going as they passed her out in the garden laying adjacent to the house. She didn't look up, but simply waved him away.

They began their descent down the hill, going carefully as to avoid tumbling down the steep slope. Jordan listened in amusement as Tucker began muttering something about stairs.

As they reached the small, dense forest below the house, Jordan noticed something was missing. He looked around, turning in circles before turning to Tucker, eyebrows raised in a question.

"Something you want to ask?"

Jordan gave Tucker an apologetic smile.

"Well yeah. I don't mean to question your methods or anything," Jordan began slowly "-but don't you need an axe or something." Jordan looked around, searching for some sign of how Tucker had been cutting the trees.

"Nope." Tucker popped the 'p' as he grinned, looking smug.

Dramatically (and slowly) Tucker walked up to a tree Jordan assumed was birch. He never had taken notice to identify trees despite living in one his entire life. He just knew which ones were the sturdiest for climbing, and which ones contained something to eat. This one seemed to be neither.

Tucker pretended to be sizing up the tree, holding his fingers up in a square as if judging angles. Jordan rolled his eyes at this display, sighing in exasperation.

Tucker noticed Jordan getting bored and frowned.

Tucker punched the tree in frustration, surprising Jordan, or at least that's what Jordan thought he had done. Suddenly, the tree began to vibrate before suddenly collapsing in on itself in perfect cuts two feet wide apiece.

"What the..." Jordan looked at the pile in amazement, suddenly feeling cheated. He had spent years cutting wood by hand to build his home whilst Tucker had just done hours of work in a single punch.

Tucker's face turned neutral as he began to collect the wood like nothing had happened.

"You going to help with this, or what?" Tucker frowned at Jordan who was still staring, gaping.

"How did you- how did you do that?" Jordan's mouth was still wide open.

"Help with this and I'll tell you."

Snapping out of his trance, Jordan hurriedly began picking up the scattered logs, admiring the perfectly smooth cuts with wonder.

As they began to carry their load back up the hill, Jordan asked once again about Tucker's trick.

"It's not a trick," Tucker replied "It's called punch."

"Punch?"

"We're the freaking specially picked champions of the gods and you never guessed we'd get something for it?" Tucker asked in mock amazement.

"Well, I've had other godly side affects to worry about." Jordan muttered ruefully, adjusting the pile of logs in his arms to a more comfortable position, feeling the sweat already dripping his down his nose from the exertion of going uphill.

"Ah...right." Tucker spoke sheepishly, sending Jordan an apologetic glance.

"And plus, punch? How creative can these guys get?" Jordan laughed.

Tucker paled, looking around uncertainly.

"I wouldn't insult the gods too much you know. You haven't seen what they can do to a person." Tucker shuddered.

Jordan shrugged. The gods hadn't really done anything good for him to respect them for. Sure, Ianite had saved him, but it was only becuase Mianite and Dianite's little fued nearly got him killed.

Honestly, he still couldn't wrap his head around the whole "gods" thing.

I mean sure, he'd seen some pretty weird stuff and even sworn fealty to one, but it still didn't feel real. Even Declin's story, while making sense, just sounded... wrong.

"Well anyways." Tucker continued. "As I was saying, when you're a god's champion, you get a couple bonuses, including small bits of...umm.." Tucker trailed off as if trying to find a fitting word.

"Magic?" Jordan was beginning to get excited, though still slightly skeptical.

"Hm, sorta. Declin told me the proper term for it once, but that was years ago." Jordan watched from behind as Tucker gracefully scaled a small ledge without disturbing the precariously piled logs in his arms.

As Jordan attempted weakly to copy the motion, Tucker continued.

"Punch is a certain ability that increases your strength tenfold so that you can, for example, punch a tree down." Tucker explained, stopping to turn and help Jordan who was still struggling up the ledge.

"By focusing the power we channel from our respective gods, things like this are simple. You just tell the energy what you want it to do, and voila!"

"Okay, so what about this?" Jordan held up a log.

"Cutting them? Well that's-"

"Please tell me it isn't called cut."

Tucker frowned.

"No, that would be stupid." Tucker looked at Jordan as if he had lost it.

"Then what's it called?"

"...Slash."

"Woah, so much better." Jordan rolled his eyes.

"Whatever." Tucker sped up, causing Jordan to groan as he was forced to do likewise.

"So I can use these, too? I can punch a tree just like that?"

"You make it sound easy."

"You made it sound easy." Jordan corrected.

"True." Tucker admitted. "But it's not."

Jordan sighed in relief as they finally reached the top of the hill, greeted by the familiar overgrown path to the place he now called home. He would have to fix that up later.

"Care to explain?"

"Yeah," Tucker looked distracted. "in a moment." He began looking around, carefully placing his pile of wood down so as to not make too much noise. His whole body was tensed as he did so.

"Something wrong?" Jordan asked, his voice quiet as he did likewise with his wood.

"Sonja... Sonja isn't outside anymore."

Relief flooded Jordan.

"That's it? I'm sure she's just inside." Jordan reassured, walking past Tucker towards the house.

Tucker grabbed his shoulder, causing Jordan to turn back and look at him. His eyes radiated urgency beneath the red bill of his hat. (It's called a bill, ...right?)

"Someone else is here." Tucker whispered urgently.

"How do you know?" Jordan lowered his tone to meet Tucker's. He looked around, searching for whatever had tipped Tucker off.

"Shhh! The window on the bottom floor. Look."

Jordan stiffened.

"That's not Sonja." Tucker confirmed.

Jordan shook his head. Tucker's voice was getting to him.

"It could just be Declin or Champwan." Jordan reassured, not understanding why this bothered Tucker so much. I mean, there weren't many people in the realm to begin with, so it's not like there could be any theives.

...Hopefully.

"Maybe." Tucker replied, unconvinced, eyes not moving from the figure in the window.

"Look, I'll prove it to you." Jordan said, standing up and walking openly down the path towards his house with a burst of confidence

"Jordan!" Tucker hissed urgently, reluctantly moving from his hiding spot to chase after him.

"You've only been here two months! You don't know the things I've seen!" Tucker whispered worriedly. This might have bothered Jordan had it not sounded so cliché and overused. However, what did bother him was the haunted look in Tucker's eyes. They were the eyes of a veteran soldier who had been through countless trauma-inducing situations. This should have also frightened Jordan had not the owner of those eyes been wearing something that looked like a preschooler's play outfit.

Jordan ignored him and sped up to Tucker's frustation.

Why was everyone so antsy around here? He noticed that no one seemed to go anywhere unarmed. Quivers were always full and swords so sharp they could split hair with the lightest of swings. Sonja had nearly stabbed him once when he walked up behind her fixing the lighting. Though of course, Jordan had been living in a tree most of his life. Maybe people in the big cities were all like this. Though he seriously doubted things had gotten that bad.

Jordan took a deep breath as he stood on the porch before stepping forward and swinging open the door before he could think better if it.

He should've thought better of it.

He heard the sharp twing of a bowstring snapping back as time seemed to slow down.

Jordan knew there was no time to react. There was no way he could avoid an arrow at point blank range.

He could hear Tucker yelling, but it was too late.

Jordan tried to turn to look back at Tucker only to find himself engulfed in darkness.

~o~o~

A/N

Miss me?

Heck, with the way the ends of my chapters always go, of course you don't.

Most of you are probably just screaming STAHP, PLS.

Well too bad.

So by the way, out of curiousity. Is there a reason why a chapter would have more reads than the previous ones? Maybe it's a glitch because honestly, that doesn't make a lick of sense to me. O_o

Oh yeah! New cover! You likey?

I don't own the art, but I own the edit credit! ;)

The cover I had for a couple days before this one WAS drawn by me.

That's why I took it off.

But if you guys want it (I doubt you do) I'll attach it to the chapter.

SEASON 2 IS OVERRRRRR! :'(

Now what do I do with this extra two hours on my hands???

Not write, apparently.

Sorry about that.

Ah well, stay gnarbuckle, my friends!

~ Turtle