Chapter 1
“Father, you do not need to dirty your hands on his blood, let me do it,” Joyce said.
Joyce and her father was in the woods, and in front of them lay a crippled young man. She steeped forward, “Levis, you have killed many of our kingdom’s men, but the Shandon has decided that it is not evil to the ‘world’. So, my fellow Shandon Knight, would you rather die a quick death, or a slow and painful one?” Joyce asked so seriously it makes one shiver.
Levis replied, “As long as I get to spend my last minute with milady, I don’t care.” Joyce faltered after she heard what he said. She shook her thoughts away, and soften her tone, “Your were eager to hear my voice, didn’t you? Well, I’ll grant you one last wish before you leave then.” She turned back to whisper to her father, “Father, I’ll kill him with that, please use the Sound Filter.” Then, she walked back in front of the young man, opened her mouth, and started singing.
“Summer has come and passed,
The innocent can never last,
Wake me up, when september ends,
Like my fathers come to pass,
Seven years has gone so fast,
Wake me up, when september ends...”
While she was singing, Levis’ life span is slowly being stripped away. When she was done, Levis lean against a huge rock behind him, smiled weakly and said, “Thank you, milady...” and his eyelids fell.
Joyce was heartbroken throughout the whole process. She had tried to stop herself, but she couldn’t. Suddenly, everything started to darken, and Jovyne was soon falling into a dark abyss.
Chapter 2
“Joyce...Joyce...” Joyce heard someone’s voice calling out to her. She tried to get away from the dark abyss, but she just couldn’t bring herself to move. “Joyce!” She suddenly jumped. She was back in her classroom, while her History of the Shandon Knight class was going on, and her friend, Annabeth is whispering loudly at her, while pointing to the teacher. Joyce understood what her friend was signaling, and stood up. “Answer this question.” The teacher told her. She stepped in front of the blackboard, looked at the question, and started writing in a godly speed. After 10 seconds, the whole board was filled with her writing, and she turned and asked, “Is this okay, sir?” The teacher looked at the board carefully, and allowed her to go back to her seat.
“That was nice, Joyce! You just outsmarted ‘The Devil’!” Annabeth exclaimed when walking down the corridor, “No wonder someone is last year’s No.1 Shandon Knight.”
“I thought I told you not to talk about that,” Joyce snapped while looking around cautiously.
“I don’t get it. Why are you so afraid of people knowing it? You should be proud of it!” Annabeth was confused.
“I...I have my own reasons.” Joyce abruptly ends the topic, and enters the training room. Annabeth still looked confused, but soon left. Jovyne went to the control room alone to change the training setting. Then, she came out to the training area, and shouted “Training Operation 1, start!”
Suddenly, straw dummies popped out from the ground, and she took out shurikens from the pouch that is tied to her thigh and threw it directly at the heart and head of the dummies. The dummies disappeared, and Jovyne commanded “Operation 2, start!”
Instantly, she was wrapped by a tropical forest, and felt that there were a bunch of fierce predators ready to eat her. She heard the snarl of a tiger to the right, the scurrying of a bear at her back, the steady trotting of the black panther to the left, the breath of the lion to her front. She jumped up to the nearest tree and observe her preys from above. The battle of predators, Start!
Chapter 3
Bad news. The predators below has no desire of fighting each other. Instead, they were all aiming for the prey above. Jovyne observed carefully the habits of the four animals. She waited patiently, and a loud horn was sounded. The bear put his head under his paws, the panther jumped, the tiger turned its head around. Only the lion made no sign to the sound. This was her chance.
Joyce shot an arrow through the bear’s heart, jumped onto the panther, slit its head, and threw a shuriken directly at the tiger’s heart. There’s only Joyce and the lion left in the forest.
Both of the predators were circling each other, waiting for the best chance to pounce. The lion was roaring right in front of her face, but she made no sign of giving in. The events that happened after was so quick, it was unclear which came first. The lion abruptly stopped, Joyce vanished, and appeared behind the lion. She stuck her sword right down into the lion’s heart. Splash! Blood streamed out from the dead lion. Joyce stood up and muttered humbly, “My fellow predators, you have done well to survive and claim the name of the strongest predators in the jungle. Even though this is only a practice, but by the Shandon, I am sorry of my actions.”
Apparently, Joyce was the winner of the battle. The tropical forest disappeared along with the carcasses of the animals, and the bell rang. She went to the control room to clear the settings, and left the training room. She was feeling great after not training for 2 whole weeks. When she came out, there were a bunch of people surrounding the training room, watching her training. Joyce blamed herself quietly, “Stupid Joyce, you forgot to put the Protective Veil around the room!” She left quietly in the gazes of the crowd.
Chapter 4
“You know, everyone had been talking about seeing the long gone training of ‘the invincible’ last night.” Annabeth whispered into Joyce’s ears. Her heart skipped a beat, but she kept on walking to the bathroom. “Don’t ignore me, Joyce, I know you were training yesterday. Damn it, I actually missed your training!”
“Don’t talk about it so loudly!” Joyce finally whispered angrily at Annabeth. “Yikes, you could use some cooling down once in a while. You know, you’ve been more fierce than usual.” Annabeth teased. Joyce was about to get her when she jumped into her classroom, “See ya!”
Joyce sighed and walked on, until a voice came into her mind, “Hey Jov, I haven’t felt a bit of embarrassment from you for a long time now.”
“Don’t you have anything to do rather than teasing me, Alice?” Joyce asked Alice in her mind.
“Well, being the Shandon Master is kinda booooooring, you know? Just thought I would invite you to some coffee in my office.” Alice said.
“Yes, ma'am.” Joyce obeyed.
She walked down the corridor silently, and stopped in front of a door that said ‘Shandon Master Office’. She knocked on the door silently, and slipped into the office.
