The Fasuru closely resembles a spider, with eight long spindly legs ending in sharp points, the resemblance however ends there. It lacks the spider’s iconic eight eyes and has none of the tiny hairs, instead, its main body and head are covered in many tiny holes. And on the head, arranged in a triangular formation, are three round protrusions.

In my head, Luoi speaks quickly. “I should be able to handle the spider while you take care of the man, but I’ll need something from you to be able to do so.”

“You can take whatever you want,” I reply. I am not confident of being able to fight both the man and the Fasuru at once. If Luoi can take the Fasuru however, I should be able to hold off the man until we can fuse once more.

The man straightens and I and Charlotte tense up. The Arcane Projector on Charlotte’s hand flashes and a moment later sword made of fire appears in her hand. As her grip on the hilt tightens the fire changes, turning into something that more closely resembles steel than fire.

The man speaks in a voice that is clearly fake. “Look, I doubt any of us here really wants to fight, so how about this? Give me the suitcase and we can avoid unnecessary violence.”

I did not expect him to try and negotiate. Relief fills me as I realize that we could get through this without fighting. To be honest, I did not want to fight him. While he isn’t as strong as the Majin, his attacks earlier show that he has no qualms about killing. The prospect of fighting someone like that scares me. One wrong move and I’ll be six feet under.

“Not a chance.” Charlotte instantly shoots down his offer. “It belongs to us, not you.”

I turn to look at her, surprise written all over my face. “What?” Why would she refuse his offer of peace? Has she forgotten that she was in life-threatening danger not too long ago?

The man nods. “I know, but there has been a mix-up. There is some… that suitcase belongs to me. If you hand it over I’ll make sure to give you your reward, I have no interest in it.”

I turn to Charlotte and say. “That doesn’t sound like a bad id-”

“Bullshit,” Charlotte says. “If that was so you wouldn’t have tried so hard to kill us earlier.”

I stare at her exasperatedly. Why is she trying so hard to start a fight?

This time the annoyance is clear in the man’s voice. “Do you think you’d be alive if I truly tried to kill you? Fine then, have it your way.”

Luoi is the first one to react as the spider Fasuru suddenly rushes at us. As Luoi leaves my body I suddenly feel drained of all emotion and am hit by a strong urge to plop down on the ground and do nothing. I am able to fight the urge only because at the same moment the masked man begins launching a series of attacks.

I summon Hilla’s Barrier once more, protecting Charlotte and me as a barrage of projectiles hit. Each projectile packs quite a punch but I am not too worried about that. From what I can tell by his aura, his Uua shouldn’t be up to par with mine so if he wants to waste it all on projectiles I have no problem staying still and taking the hits. In the end, I’ll still come out victorious.

At the same time, I activate D-three, my go-to combination for fights. The strengthening noer to make me more resilient, enhancement noer to improve my senses and physical capabilities, and finally Focusing my Uua around myself. Unlike when Drew first taught me how to Focus, my control over my Uua has gotten better. In the beginning, the Focus Uua writhed and raged around me as I struggled to keep it under control, but now its appearance is more smooth, now resembling turbulent water instead of the raging flames from before.

“You’re glowing?” Charlotte asks.

“Not really. It’s Uua, so don’t touch me unless you want to get fried.” She nods. “Good, now let’s take this guy down.”

“I’ll support you from afar. Just try not to get in my way.” She says.

I nod and drop the barrier, using Glide I dash toward the man, making sure I am not standing between Charlotte and him. The path between them clear, she swings the flaming swords unleashing fiery arcs at the man. The arcs surprise me with their speed, rushing past me and slamming into the man, all in the blink of an eye, caught off guard by the speed the man can’t help but get hit. But what they have in speed, they lack in power, releasing only minuscule explosions that only serve to throw the man off balance. If a normal person had been hit by the arcs, they would have been severely injured, but the man seems to have some sort of protection that neutralized most of the power of the arcs.

Charlotte sends more arcs at him but now having experienced them, he is quick to react, managing to dodge all of them, but coming closer to me in the process. My turn.

I summon a bunch of Roes and send them at him. They are slower than Charlotte’s fiery arcs but they more than makeup for it with power. I use the first few to set a trap for him before unleashing the rest altogether. Once he sees he cannot dodge anymore, he summons a barrier that blocks the rest of my Roes.

He then opens his arms wide before bringing his hands back together, but instead of a simple clap, a shock-wave is unleashed. All the windows of the nearby houses shatter as I am hit by a loud boom. For a moment I am senseless then I am back to myself. Behind me, Charlotte has been knocked unconscious. My Focused Uua reducing the shock-waves power and the strengthening noer doing its job is the only reason I am still standing.

Still, my moment of insensibility has given the man enough time to pull out a gun. As he points the gun at me I freeze. Growing up in the modern world, only an idiot wouldn’t know the power of guns, and now that I am facing the end of one I can’t help but feel fear. In the Rankings my Hilla’s Barrier had been broken by Bree’s projectiles showing me that the barrier isn’t all-powerful. For him to pull out a gun now, I have no doubt that nothing I have can protect me from the bullets.

Time seems to slow down as I stare at the gun pointing at me. My heart is pounding as I get flashes of the possible future, all of them showing me dead on the ground. Is there any way to stop it? I can’t think of one. Will I die here? Cold sweat breaks out on my skin.

With a burst of power, Luoi throws the spider away from himself before rushing back into and merging with me. Without wasting time he tries to take control and I let him. Just as the man pulls the trigger my hand reaches out and I use telekinesis to push his hand but he resists. The gun goes off but I am safe. Even though he had resisted I had managed to shift his hand enough for the bullet to miss me.

“The moment I tell you to activate the mark on your forehead,” Luoi tells me as he raises my hand to touch my forehead. That simple action is a reminder to the man, if he wants to escalate things then I can easily summon all the Laen nearby here.

He stays still, his still smoking gun pointed at me, then he lowers his gun. “Pray we do not meet again.” The spider Fasuru leaps back into his body, then he turns around and walks away.

When he is out of sight I turn around to see Trevor helping Charlotte to her feet. For some seconds I stare at them, the only audible sound being my heavy breathing. “What’s in the suitcase?” I would like to know what I just risked my life for. If it was for something stupid…

Trevor opens the suitcase and shows me its contents. I am immediately blinded by the bundles of cash arranged neatly within. “Holy…” I say. “Did you steal that?”

He shakes his head. “No. We’ve been doing some jobs for someone, this is ten jobs payment packed into one suitcase. It’s not as much as it looks.” He closes the suitcase. “Can you escort us somewhere, I’m afraid he might ambush us later if you leave.”

I nod. Together, we leave South Side and about five minutes later we are standing opposite an orphanage. At this point, Trevor turns to Charlotte who nods at him before fishing out an envelope from her pocket. After making sure no one is nearby, he hides in the shadow of a nearby building and pulls open the suitcase, taking out some of the wads of cash and stuffing it into the envelope. Once done he writes something on the envelope before handing it over to Charlotte. She then sneaks over to the orphanage and stuffs it in their mailbox before leaving. I watch all of this quietly.

“Merry Christmas,” Trevor mutters, almost to himself.

After some seconds of silence, I say. “You’re a good person.” I have no idea why I said that.

Trevor shakes his head. “We’re not.”

“But you are.”

“Not.”

I cock my head. “Why are you so against being a good person?”

“I’m not.”

We stay quiet until Charlotte rejoins us. I then ask. “Why did you give them so much money.” I nod at the orphanage.

“They need it,” Charlotte answers. “Besides, it wasn’t that much, compared to all the children inside.”

“How do you know they need it?”

“Because we’re part of them.”

Silence. So they’re orphans. I didn’t know that, but it kind of makes sense now. Even if their parents were Erhaz, I doubt they would let their kids risk so much on the kind of missions they accept. Plus, learning magic would have been a lot easier for them if they had someone like a parent to learn form.

“Thanks for helping us,” Trevor says. “We’re going to be hiding for a while, in case that guy comes to look for us. If you need us, just call, we’ll help in any way we can.”

I nod before walking away. Luoi had been keeping watch ever since we left South Side so I am sure there is no threat. “See you guys later.”

* * * * * *

Trevor

After Ian leaves, I open the suitcase and pull out the piece of paper I had seen earlier. After reading its contents my face pales as a chill spreads through my body. Shit. No wonder he was willing to kill us. So it’s because of this.

“What's wrong?” Charlotte asks. I hand her the piece of paper and a minute later her complexion resembles my own. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“But-”

“But nothing. Charlotte, we can’t go against the Ascendant Union. Besides, there’s no way they can do it now. That masked man knows Ian is a Laen, and Ian was with us. He probably thinks Ian knows about it so they won’t do it. Or at least they’re going to change plans.”

Charlotte takes a deep breath to calm herself down. “So what now?”

“We’ll hide with Shells. He should be able to stop Madame from looking for us. Hopefully, that guy forgets about us.”