“No, No. I really am Rose,” said the college-age woman, “Well, my first name anyway.”

Rufus’ words echoed in my ears. There’s a time and place for anything. Also, I remembered something about there being magicians across all ages and on both side of the gender divide.

There was also something about bicycles, but mainly, I was preoccupied with the stranger in front of me. Things were becoming kind of scary, and I bet if any other girl had my degree of talent, she would’ve wimped out by now, but this Rose was only a little older than I was.

She might’ve been about half a decade older than me, but actually, thinking about I, I think it might be something else that drives her confidence. A little foolishness, sure, but there was also something else that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. A quality that I could describe easily in words, even if I didn’t know if there was any particular word for it in any dictionary.

Yes, this woman has eight-grade syndrome. Then again, she does have magic powers to really back those thoughts up, but I don’t think it’s quite healthy.

She also seemed very absorbed in my appearance, “Wow, you’re really cute,” she said, and all of that, but mostly, she never really talked why she was there then.

“Erm, what exactly are we doing on the street so late.”

“I was with Clara and we wanted to scan around for any sources of evil magic. Soon, the city will lay down a curfew if the townsfolks’ health doesn’t improve, so we won’t be able to.”

I bet Clara was the blue Avian, and that she also prepared that response for her. Also, it was kind of cute that that one was even smaller and littler than Rufus, but she went off with him right away.

“Right. If that is the case, why does she need you to go with her?”

“Oh. That’s simple, Lilly. It’s because Avians might have good talent with magic, but they might not always be the best fighters.”

“Is that so? I guess before I asked you that, what exactly do you need to fight?”

“Evil magical summoned beasts, of course,” she said matter-of-fact, “It’s only normal for a magical girl to fight evil things.”

“Oh bother,” I exhaled.

“Oh magic! Anyhow. We should hurry along.”

As Rose said this, the mean blue Avian returned with Rufus following. She hadn’t spoke to me until now, “Okay, temporary agent, for now you can call me Clara. I will now defer leadership to my colleague, and since there is someone sufficiently skilled in sleuth magic, I will leave,” and she left.

It was a very strange way of introducing herself, but then I remembered that most Avians didn’t think much of humans.

Rufus on the other hand, did care about me in the most minimal ways that were proper, “Did you have a chance to meet. Hello Rose, my name is Rufus.”

This change of roles made me smile a bit, and I accidently said something out loud that I wasn’t supposed to.

“What’s up with her. Is she your superior or something?”

“Now that you mention that, it may be time for me to tell you something. We Avians are only so proud because we are the most long-lived- I mean, we are a very long-lived people,”

What does that have to do with anything?

He continued, “Technically, I have the higher rank in our super secret magic bureaucracy because of things in the past, but she’s older than me. Over all that time, the scope of our achievements gets out of hand. Let’s say that I’ve successfully managed to train three or so temporary achievements. She’s got hundreds. But only because she’s been at it for a few of your human lifetimes.”

“Huh, but that would mean that human lifespans are short relatively,” interrupted Rose.

“Yes,” Rufus echoed quietly.

“Does that mean that you are centuries old?”

“No. I’m not that old and even then, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Even though Rufus got on my back for my tact, he didn’t mind with Rose. Maybe it was something different about the way she talked. Those two questions got me more information that my weeks of adventure.

“Alright. We just have to run into summoned beasts and then we can guess where the perpetrator is hiding,” he said.

But that was a stupid idea. It ended up talking hours, and the little buggers were nightmares.

The first one we say crept up from behind, I guess from springing from a trashcan. The lid shot off and crashed noisily, and the little grotesque thing tried and ran.

They were always shapeless animals, with shiny exoskeletons and silent creeps. The first one was surrounded in a cage of light by Rufus, while Rose shot at it.

I saw that she too, carried a wand that was like mine. From her fingertips, entire arcs of energy flowed and zapped the beasts to smithereens. Instead of disappearing, it would simply stay there broken, until about after one minute, in which it puffed into smoke.

I guess with three of us here, they didn’t even try to fight back like they did when Rose and Clara were at it alone. The experience was terrifying too. I thought I was close to becoming an adult, but Rose was more mature about.

By the end of the day, I was soaked in sweat, and more soaked, in places. Rufus was tired but not spent, and Rose was ever the better, but I felt that she resented smashing all of those scary summoned beasts.

At least from the search and the behaviors of the summoned beasts, we learned that they were simply for surveillance and not part of the forbidden arts the criminal was committing too. That meant we also had a good search radius for next time.

But really, I was so tired and scared I never wanted to do it again. I snuck back home with a little of the new magic that Rufus taught me. He told me how to quickly teleport small differences and by that I was able to look presentable when it was time to say goodnight.

I guess none of my parents really knew when I got home, but they didn’t bring up the fact that I never went through the front door.