They'd left the bar out the back door, with plans to meet up with the pair of mercenaries that evening. Apparently, Viper's source wasn't someone he could meet with during the day, but Rika seemed confident it wouldn't be an issue. Alden was trailing her by a few steps as usual, trying to guess where they were headed. At the moment, they were passing the destroyed library, which still sent chills down Alden's spine.

It was such a stark contrast to the well-kept town. Alden had never seen such clean streets. Being from a larger city, he always assumed a small layer of trash was simply natural, but the residents of Rallsburg were proud of their town and kept it orderly and neat. To see this wrecked, slowly decaying building totally abandoned by everyone and left to rot seemed completely out of place. Whenever Alden got near, though, he could feel it urging him away. It was silently screaming of dangers hidden within the ruined pillars.

He was so enraptured he almost missed Rika trying to talk to him.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what?" Alden asked, tearing his eyes away to look at her. He always felt a bit intimidated by her. Rika may have been shorter than him by half a foot, but she practically radiated strength and competence. He was jealous of that confidence, but it was invigorating as well. She was tough, she could take care of herself and she knew it. He found her mesmerizing, and mentally styled himself as her companion in this adventure.

"You keep poking in, stopping me or defending me or whatever. Why?"

"I dunno," Alden said. "Why not?"

Rika frowned, taking a break behind a few bushes lining the street. She was still avoiding being seen when possible, but Alden got the impression she also didn't want him to see her face right then. He leaned against a nearby wall, watching for any onlookers.

"I told you I'm not exactly popular around here, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, someone jumping in on my side means a lot, okay? So I wonder why."

"I just want to help."

"But you've got your own shit, don't you? What about your lost sibling?"

Alden shrugged. "Kendra hasn't said anything yet, and I have no clue where to start besides her. I'd rather be helping you than sitting around trying to think of something new."

Rika laughed weakly. "Who the fuck are you, Alden Bensen?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The one actually selfless person in Rallsburg, apparently." Hearing that from Rika gave him a warm glow. It was how he envisioned himself. A hero of the town—or at least a hero to this strange, exciting girl he'd met.

"Come on, I can't be the only one," Alden said, trying to be modest.

"Everyone else has got an agenda, trust me. I'm pretty sure I warned you that from minute one." Rika stood, rolling her head round her shoulders and stretching out her neck before setting off once more. "So, where are you from anyway?"

"Kent, just outside Tacoma. My family has a house up in the hills over there."

"No wonder you think this place is nice if you live in fucking Tacoma."

"Near Tacoma."

Rika grinned. "So what's the rest of the family, then?"

"My parents are both teachers," Alden said. "High school."

"Eww, did you have to have them as teachers?"

"Nah, I went to a tech magnet school. I never had them. My sister did though."

"Sister? Thought your sibling was a total mystery."

"That sibling is probably older though. My sister Margaret's only fourteen. Way too young for college."

"Hey, I've known some damn smart fourteen year olds."

"I thought you didn't go to college?"

Rika shook her head. "Nah, but I still end up meeting a lot of interesting people. Consequences of my parents."

"Your dad was something to do with software, right?" Alden filled in eagerly.

"Top of the class, Alzack." Rika grinned. "Yeah, my dad founded NishiSoft, because he doesn't have a creative bone in his body and named a company after his family name. They wrote database analysis software for trends in data mining. Boring as fuck, but super valuable to all the ad companies these days. Kendra's family bought us out so they could resell the software to western companies, since no one wanted to learn Japanese to speak with our sales reps. I was probably the only one there who actually liked speaking English."

"You worked for them?"

"'You grow up in the Nishimura household, you serve the family from the minute you can walk'," Rika intoned mockingly. "My grandmother on my mother's side was Canadian, and she taught me English while my mother taught me Japanese. Between that and the Internet, I grew up a nice bilingual asset for my father's company."

"Why not your mother?" Alden asked.

"Because she wasn't permitted to use English," Rika spat. "My family acted like it was still the fucking Meiji era and told my mother she was to raise children and keep the household, and nothing else. She couldn't even work on her novels, just draw occasionally when she found some time to herself. If she'd actually been a Japanese citizen, maybe she could've done something about it, but she didn't want to give up her homeland. She refused and stayed inside all the time rather than face all the judgment." The bitterness in Rika's voice was mounting with every word.

"...What happened to her?" Alden asked quietly.

"Dead," Rika said shortly.

Alden stopped walking and looked back at her, half-shaded by the nearest building. Her eyes were burning with a cold fury he recognized from the diner, when they'd first met. He hesitated, casting about for something to say. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," Rika said, her eyes softening a little. "I owe her everything, so I'm going to find the one responsible and deal with him."

"...Your father?"

"Yup," Rika said, a brief crackle of lightning sparkling up the blue lock of hair.

"What can I do to help?" Alden asked firmly.

Rika smiled, but shook her head. "That's a family matter, but I appreciate it. Really. And if I can help you find your mysterious brother or sister, you just say the word. I've got your back."

They arrived at Hendricks Apartments a short while later without incident. Apparently, the source they were looking for happened to live near Rika, which she found incredibly irritating.

"If I'd known the fucker was awakened this whole time, I could have just gone straight to him," she grumbled while they snuck through the underbrush on the rear hill behind the apartments. "A guy who can find things with magic? Exactly what I need." She paused, holding onto a tree branch with a wide-eyed expression.

"What?"

"A guy who can find things…" Rika repeated. "Kendra had a source for finding Scraps, and was going to sell me the same service for my father. It's gotta be him. No way multiple people have that kind of spell worked out already."

"Who is this person anyway?" Alden asked.

"Can't tell you that," Rika replied. "I'm sorry, but I'm sworn to secrecy, and I'm trying to actually keep my promises now. Trust me though, he's harmless."

"Something doesn't add up though."

"Yeah, he's clearly not charging enough."

"No, not that. I don't think he can actually do what he says he can do."

"Huh?"

Alden sat down for a moment to catch his breath. Climbing up the steep slope to the apartments was more difficult than he'd expected. "He's probably able to find Scraps and magic things, since he found out about yours. But I don't think he can find people. If he could, why wouldn't Kendra use him to find Natalie's dad?"

"Shit, Alden. That makes sense."

"So either Kendra's being lied to, or we are," Alden concluded.

"Or he can, but Natalie's father is being blocked somehow. Magic preventing magic."

"Does it work like that?"

"Sometimes," Rika said. "Here, try this out." She looked round. Her hand flung out at the underbrush. A stick gently floated into the air in front of her. "Reach out and grab it."

Alden reached for the magic. He'd begun to visualize it in his mind like a churning liquid in his mind, a pool of raw energy from which he could release bits of power to do things. It helped him hold more control over the flow of energy out of his body, so that he didn't black out from overexertion. He'd come up with the idea himself, and felt quite proud of it—but when he described the idea to Rika, she just laughed. Apparently, she had no need to hold back, and that her body was much better at self-regulating than his.

His own mental projection reached for the stick, while the pool in his mind sprung a small leak. When he was about to make contact, he could feel another presence. It was a hard invisible surface, in the shape of an encompassing sphere that held the entire stick firmly in place. Curious, Alden tried to feel at it, and realized that if he pressed harder, he could actually break into it. He focused his will into a thicker point and drove at the edge of the stick. The leak in the pool widened, but he could feel the sphere beginning to crack.

"Yeah, that's how it works," Rika said. "When you project, you'll start to notice other people messing with things. There's a whole invisible layer just above what you actually see and feel."

Alden tried to press harder, wanting to break through and show Rika he could manage it. A crack began to form. Alden looked at her excitedly, but she just smirked.

A invisible wave slammed into his will from the side, shoving him away and shattering his concentration completely. He let go immediately, closing up the pool.

Rika cackled with glee. "Nice try, but you gotta remember that I can come at you from anywhere." She dropped the stick and held out a hand to him. "Come on, let's go home already."

Alden hesitated, but took her hand all the same, bracing himself. The jolt of electricity rolled through him, and he wasn't jumping at it anymore. It was a friendly greeting, familiar and exciting and the tiniest bit dangerous.