“What the fuck.”

“I can’t say that’s the kind of thing I expected you to say.” Sally commented, a tentative smile blooming on her face.

“What the fuck.” James repeated again, still confused about the whole thing. He had spent the past night obsessing about all the possibilities behind Sally’s message, and the one thing he had not considered was that she had Awakened too.

“Do I look that bad? All the pretty girls you surround yourself with must make me look ugly, right?” She asked, some of her usual impishness coming to the forefront.

When he opened his mouth again, she stopped him. “If the next words out of you are ‘What the fuck’ again, I swear to God, James!”

He shut up, his teeth clicking. He blinked twice and then slapped himself, rebooting his brain.

“Alright. Alright, I think I’m good now.” He said, blinking rapidly.

“So.” Sally began, seeing that he was finally paying attention. “You already know I Awakened, then.”

James took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, I have a skill that makes it easy to tell.”

Sally pouted, crossing her arms. “And here I wanted to do a big reveal. I even had all the words picked!”

He chuckled, feeling as if they were back before everything changed. “You can do it now anyway. I promise I can act convincingly.”

“Nah, it wouldn’t be the same.”

For a little while, they chatted about everything and nothing. It was as if they had gone back to sneaking around Home Depot, stealing a few more minutes of break to keep talking with one another.

Unfortunately, the real world would not be denied much longer, and when James’ eye fell on the still bandaged leg, he felt Sally stiffen.

“It’s not a pretty sight, but it’s almost completely regrown.” She said in a deceptively light tone.

“At least you can walk with it.” He answered, maintaining the same disinterested facade. He wanted to ask what she had been through, how she had dealt with the trauma, and how he could help. But he wasn’t about to bring up bad memories for her if she didn’t do so first.

“Yeah, the doctors say a couple more weeks and it’ll be like nothing ever happened to it. I even stopped taking Elixirs. Just potions and rest, for now.” Sally revealed, her gaze lost in the bay.

“Sounds like things are looking up.” James commented. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but he felt awkward, not knowing what he could talk about. Technically, Sally was the one who needed to apologize, but it didn’t feel right to force one out of her by asking directly.

The specter of her absence, however, still hung over them.

Finally, she refocused, turning to face him completely. “Sorry, I asked you here and now I can’t even gather the courage to say anything. I didn’t come because I just wanted to see you, as much as I may like it.”

James braced himself. Whatever she would say next would change everything, he knew.

“I originally wanted to ask you to come with me.”

He blinked, before the implications settled in. “You’re leaving.”

She smiled sadly. “I am. I can’t stay here, James. Too much has happened. Every time I get out of my house, I feel panic rising up. I keep looking back, afraid something is going to attack me.”

He sighed. It shouldn’t have been so surprising, after all. Not many people liked remaining in the same place they had been mauled. While it wasn’t exactly possible to find somewhere this wouldn’t happen, he couldn’t begrudge her for not feeling at ease in New York.

“I wanted to ask you to come with me.” She repeated “But I can see that you have already overcome that night. You are probably happy, even.”

Tears started forming at the edge of her eyes, but Sally stubbornly pushed them back. If there was one thing James had always admired about her character, it was how strong she was. After what she had gone through, having the courage to leave the house by herself at all was impressive.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t let the Radiant Guild get away with it.” He answered, though he knew it wasn’t what she meant.

Spite was a powerful force, but the truth was that he had never even considered closing himself into his room and never coming back. It just wasn’t him.

“I saw you in the news.” She revealed. “They obscured the face, and you were wearing a uniform, but I knew it was you. You went back to the sewers. You cleared the rat dungeon, even.”

James smiled. It had taken some time to overcome his hesitation, and he had to take a moment more than once to strengthen his will, but he had confronted the trauma head-on. He was actually somewhat proud of that.

“I did. Couldn’t really leave it open, right? And the Radiant wasn’t about to do it anyway.”

“See, that’s what I mean. You look more fulfilled now than in any other moment. Compared to this, you were a sad, grey person a few months ago. You craved this.” She said, vaguely gesturing to his body. He knew it wasn’t an accusation, but it sounded like one.

“I… I couldn’t do anything before, but now I can. I’m growing every day. I’m getting strong enough to finally do something!” He said, clearing his throat awkwardly at the end, once he realized he had subconsciously raised his voice.

“And I’m so happy for you.” She said, smiling sadly “But I can’t do that. I may have Awakened, but I can’t live like that. I want to finish college, work in a research facility, and understand this new world we live in. Not wade in blood and monsters and… It’s not me.”

“So you are leaving.” He said again, but this time, it was with conscious understanding. Sally was choosing to escape New York, knowing it would tear them apart. And he couldn’t stop her.

“So I am leaving.” She answered.

----------------------------------------

“Alright lovely people, gather around!” Miss Walker called as she entered the training room.

The woman was usually cheerful, but today she glowed with happiness, as if a great weight had been lifted.

Quickly, they all sat on the parlor’s couches, intently looking at their teacher.

“You might have noticed, these last couple of days, that something was happening here at the AA.” She began, sounding very smug. “We talked more than once about the situation with the Guilds, and specifically, we spoke of the Golden Sun and its subsidiaries, the Radiant and the Eclipse Guilds.”

By now, all five young Awakeners had gathered that something had been going on, especially since their teacher had been uncharacteristically reserved with her lessons, aiming to give them tactical knowledge rather than bringing them to the field like she usually would push for.

Seeing their curious faces, Miss Walker eye-smiled “A few days ago, a massive operation, with the full support of the Federal Government, took place all over New York State.”

She’s enjoying this a bit too much. They don’t pause this dramatically even at Family Feud.

“Yours truly was one of those high-ranking Awakeners chosen to participate, having provided most of the evidence necessary to move on with the entire operation.” She revealed, the tension ratcheting up another notch while they waited for the results.

“In seven different locations, raids were conducted by AA Agents and Special Ops members. Most of the Golden Sun’s elite are now in custody, held in Alcatraz Island’s Awakener Penitentiary. Their smuggling and illegal rank-raising operation has been dismantled, and their assets seized.”

A stunned moment of silence was followed by a loud cheer. Maria hugged James before launching herself at Ezekiel, then Daniel and Lauren.

Miss Walker let them celebrate for a while longer, amusedly watching, before she interrupted. “Yes, yes. It’s good news. More importantly, this will show everyone that the AA is back into play and ready to fight. It will also mean much more scrutiny on you, so keep that in mind.”

James laughed, not caring one whit about what people would think of him. The Golden Sun was down!

“What about the subsidiaries?” He then asked. Miss Walker hadn’t said anything about them being involved in the raid, but they were so profoundly intertwined that he couldn’t think of them going unscathed.

On one hand, I really wanted to be the one to take them all down, but it might be better this way.

“It wasn’t my focus, but I can tell you that some of their top executives were also taken in. Not everyone had enough evidence arrayed against them, but your efforts in showing their falsification on dungeon reports helped a lot.”

The smile on James’ face became a bit less bright at that. Of course, he had known they wouldn’t be completely destroyed, but he hadn’t been able to help hoping. “Will the Golden Sun get dismantled, at least?”

“It will. Most of their direct properties will fall under the aegis of the AA until the trial is over, but a judge already sent an order to allow us to seize almost anything. As far as the subsidiaries, they will be allowed to continue working, if only because most of the evidence against them was of negligence. Following orders is not an excuse, but it is true that they were kept in the dark about the illegal business of their mother Guild.” The masked woman answered. It was, in truth, a much more significant victory than James had been hoping for.

Even after contributing personally to the investigation, he had not believed they would actually go through it, subconsciously.

Still, the Radiant and Eclipse Guilds' survival meant he could get his revenge. Obviously, most of the government’s energies had been focused on the Golden Sun, so he couldn’t expect them to solve every problem. And thinking back to his earlier conversation with his teacher, he realized they couldn’t justify using their resources on such small Guilds.

It’s still up to us, then.

“How did you do it?” Lauren asked, leaning forward.

“You know I can’t share too much, but we caught them redhanded several times. It just took a while to organize the whole operation.”

Ezekiel hummed, sounding mildly impressed. “Is that the end of it, then? This will surely send a big message across the country, but I thought you wanted to do one massive sweep and take in everyone.”

Miss Walker sighed, deflating slightly “I would have liked to do that too, but this already took a lot of resources. We need to pace ourselves, lest we overextend.”

That sounded reasonable, unfortunately. It wasn’t like the government could unleash the full might of the military on domestic territory. As cool as that would be, people would be up in arms, rightful mission or not. And to be honest, I don’t think I’d trust them to do it right.

“So!” Their teacher clapped, regaining control of the conversation. “More on this whole thing will come out in the papers soon. For now, we can finally go back to grinding.”

Ah, of course. They kept us in here for so long because they needed to complete the sweeps before they could be sure there wouldn’t be acts of revenge.

“Does that mean we’re in the clear? You got them all?” Lauren seemed suspicious; honestly, James could understand where she was coming from. Good news was pretty rare, after all.

“We can be sure no one will target you guys for revenge.” Miss Walker answered. Her wording, however, hid the truth. She deliberately did not address the second question, meaning someone had likely managed to escape.

All members of team 0 shared a look, understanding the subtext.

“Alright, I guess that’s all you can tell us for now, huh?” The Rogue threw in with a hopeful expression. When their teacher just kept eye-smiling, she drooped.

“That said, it’s time we take a look at your next dungeon. How do you feel about dark forests full of spiders?"