Ricky was damn tired. He had hardly slept the night before, and pulled double-duty at work to fill in for a sick dancer. It paid off in tips, certainly, but all he wanted to do was get home as soon as possible and get some rest. Walking home would be the more relaxing route, but take the longest, and taking a cab was just a waste. Instead, Ricky tugged left into a back alley and powered up to Troy Squire, deciding to roof hop the way home.

Sure, it was a more exhaustive means to get home on a night he was already tired, but he would be back in no time. At least, that was the plan. He only made it one block before he felt the presence of a youma charging at him.

“Aw, s**t,” he grumbled as he pulled out his weapon. But something was off – his branch of a weapon didn’t quite feel the same. He was far too distracted by this – he was an easy one to distract, that boy – to notice the feral youma when it leapt at him and tackled him off the roof. The two fell off the roof and slammed on to the street hard, although luckily the youma broke Troy’s fall.

Troy did his best to leap back into action, swinging his branch at the beast, clubbing it in the head and punching it around until it was dusted and gone, leaving Troy even more exhausted than before. He limped the rest of the way home and climbed the fire escape back into his apartment, ready to pass out on the bed. But there was something he needed to get done first.

He sighed and pulled out his weapon and inspected his wood. It was the same size as usual, nearly nine inches with fair enough thickness. It was fairly smooth, or just as smooth as usual, but there was something off. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it, although if he investigated deeper he might just find the spot. He tried playing with his wood for a while, and when that didn’t turn up any results, started to beat it around a bit. Still, no results came out of that. He nearly put it in his mouth, but hesitated cause that might be weird.

If there was one person who would know best, it would be his ancestor Oreius. Things had been going a little better with Oreius the past weeks since Troy’s rise to becoming a Squire, at least in that Oreius began to respect his descendant a little more. Sure, Oreius still called him stupid, an idiot, a bumbling fool, and a disgrace to the family name – but it was better than being called a total waste of space. He was always willing to council the new Knight, and perhaps this would call for it….in the morning.