Watching the impending doom approach, James could only firm up his resolve and decide to make his end as difficult for his enemy as possible.

He had known from the start that this whole operation had the possible outcome of him and all his friends dying gruesomely. Still, he had deliberately ignored it, thinking that their hard work and preparations, in the end, would see them triumph.

Despite how overwhelmed and defeated an opponent seemed, it was good practice to have more than one escape plan. It was a lesson he wouldn’t forget anytime soon if he ever made it out of there, he knew.

And now, with the Radiant Guild leader leisurely approaching them with full confidence he could kill them all with a flick of his wrist, James could only regret his recklessness.

Not for himself. He didn’t particularly care. Not that he wanted to die, of course, but he had gone in fully knowing of the likelihood of his death. But he had dragged the others with him, and he felt responsible for them too.

Not much mana remained in his system despite his attempts at stalling for as long as possible. But he still had enough for one attack.

I’ll have to make it count.

James closed his eyes, feeling time slow down. There was a minuscule chance that he could do enough damage to Mettermeier with an unexpected blow to give the others an opening, and he would do everything in his power to get it.

He opened them, feeling his heartbeat slow down. There was no time for fear, no time for excitement. Every fiber of his body coiled up, gathering as much energy as possible and, the moment he noticed his enemy’s attention shift to something else, he pushed it all in his legs.

James crossed the distance faster than he ever had before. Still feeling like everything was on slow-mo, he noticed Mettermeier’s eyes return on him and widen in shock at seeing him so close.

They had barely begun to narrow in concentration that he was there and with all the desperation and focus he could muster, pushed all his energy into his fist.

He could only watch with dismay as the man’s hand came up to block his blow, but he didn’t allow it to stop him.

The second it connected, he released all the accumulated mana.

Time restarted its course, and James was blown back with the force of the resulting explosion. He rolled to a painful stop against the broken cement, grunting with discomfort, and gathered himself.

He had gotten a blow in, but James didn’t need his senses to tell him it wouldn’t be enough to do much beyond stunning Mettermeier.

He picked himself up, helped by two large hands. He gave a fleeting smile of thanks to Daniel, and refocused on the most powerful enemy he had to actually fight so far.

When the dust cloud blew away, the sea breeze doing its job quickly, James was dismayed to find that his desperate, last-minute attack had not resulted in as much damage as he had hoped.

Mettermeier was still standing, shaking his hand slowly as if to clear away an annoying sensation.

The furrow his feet had left in the cement as he was blown three feet back by the blow was a bit more impressive, but James realized with a sinking feeling it was not nearly enough.

He expected the man to gloat, maybe even taunt them a bit more before he started on his execution, but his eyes were still focused on the spot behind them that had taken his attention earlier, granting him the chance he had been seeking.

Not wanting to take his attention away from the enemy, James sent his Awareness scouring the darkness behind, looking for what it was that had shocked the man so much that he allowed himself to be hit by someone three ranks below.

The moment he found it, a laugh escaped him, and his shoulders relaxed. “Jesus, Miss, you barely made it.”

At that, all his friends turned, expressions of stark relief and joy at seeing their teacher emerge from the shadows, looking somewhat harried but no worse for wear.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The woman, in her usual black and red uniform, walked without a hurry, red eyes entirely focused on the man who would dare kill her students. She was holding something in her hand, which she gracefully tossed above the circle of Radiant members, who hurriedly opened up to let her pass without her saying anything.

That something was revealed to be a severed head. The neck, where fresh blood should be escaping, was entirely cauterized, and the expression painted on was one of concentration and worry, as if the man had been in the middle of a difficult maneuver and had been taken by surprise.

James did not recognize him, but it took little effort to realize this was the man Mettermeier had spoken about. The high ranker meant to stall and kill Miss Walker, so that the Radiant Guild could sweep everything under the rug.

Now looking much less secure, Mettermeier ground his teeth, looking around, trying to asses his chances.

Hell yeah. Now, you can get a taste of your own medicine.

All the adrenaline and energy that had been keeping James up and running having been spent in the last, desperate attack - despite how little it had seemed to do - it was no surprise that he started swaying in exhaustion.

Lauren was there immediately, grabbing his waist and supporting him. James gave her a grateful smile. He had truly pushed himself to the limits, and there would have been nothing more he could have done had Miss Walker not arrived.

“It’s over.” The woman commanded authoritatively. She didn’t raise her voice, but everyone heard the finality of her words through her aura.

She extended her will through the atmosphere until everyone could feel it pressing down, rooting them into place and preventing anyone from even thinking about escaping.

For Team 0, it felt like the caress of a worried mother. They had gotten so used to this kind of presence thanks to the extensive training the woman put them through that even had it been less protective, they wouldn’t have suffered.

The others, however, fared much worse. The Radiant members fell under the pressure, bodies pressed to the ground and unable to so much as twitch.

The few E-ranks present were left on their knees, staring in horror as the full might of a top tier B-rank fighter revealed itself.

The shadows of the night lengthened until they surrounded the parking lot, creeping towards them like an unavoidable sentence. Fires flickered in and out of existence, giving the confrontation an eerie look.

Mettermeier, being the principal focus of the aura, barely stayed standing, though he seemed to be having trouble breathing freely from the way he clawed at his throat, eyes wide in fear.

Miss Walker kept the pressure up for a few more seconds until no space was left untouched by her shadows and finally released her aura, making the whole group gasp in relief.

For several seconds, there were only the sounds of deep, starved breaths and coughs.

“Your crimes are well beyond what is needed for me to act, and your stated purpose tonight, that of trapping and killing an AA Team grants me the authority to do this.” She finally said, capturing everyone’s attention.

“The Radiant Guild will be disbanded here and now. I hereby revoke all your licenses, and take you into custody, so that you may be judged by a jury of your peers. You have the right to remain silent.”

Before anyone could get a word in edgewise to try and explain that not all of them had been on board, or even that they had been coerced into coming, the shadows jumped, swiftly covering them all and, much to their horror, dragging them down into the darkness.

Less than a minute later, the parking lot, once the site of a desperate battle, was left empty save for Team 0 and Miss Walker, who walked up to them, her hand gripping the air and somehow producing a tray of potions, which James recognized as both health and mana ones.

“Sorry for the delay, kids.” She apologized.

Giving a glance at the severed head still visible among the churning shadows, Ezekiel grimaced. “It looks like you had something to take care of before you got here.”

Miss Walker eye-smiled, looking much more relaxed now. “It was surprisingly annoying, but nothing I couldn’t handle. They had some idea that we were coming, however, which means that my work is not nearly done.”

The implication being that someone at the AA had leaked their plans. And that she was not about to let that go unpunished.

“He didn’t know about the other teams.” Lauren added, still holding James up and passing him two potions.

Their teacher hummed, eyes narrowing. “Yeah, I noticed. Zan didn’t either, which tells me it was either done at a lower level, or that someone among the higher-ups deliberately leaked only part of the plan.”

Gratefully drinking down the two brews, James felt strength returning to his battered form. The artificial taste of the potions was not pleasant, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to take them again for a little while, having drunk two together, but it was worth it.

Standing on his own two feet soon after, he felt his brain start working again, and he put two and two together. “You think someone tried to sweep the board clean. By leaking the information, they could have gotten us killed, which then would have led the other teams to show no mercy to the Radiant Guild, removing anyone who could possibly know something.”

The others turned to face Miss Walker in surprise and found confirmation of his theory in her nod. “I don’t have the certainty, but it does look like that. It’s why I contained myself and didn’t kill that man right where he stood.” She explained, gesturing to where Mettermeier had been a few minutes before.

With a startling, enormous boom, an explosion went off near the other side of Coney Island, bright and loud enough to be felt all over the city.

The shockwave reached them soon after, leaving them all stunned, as they watched a massive plume of smoke rise up into the sky.

“We need to lea-” Miss Walker’s words were drowned out by another, closer explosion, and she evidently decided there was no time to speak.

Shadows rose up and grabbed them all, dragging them into a jumbled, confused world where things moved extremely quickly.

It was less than four minutes later that they emerged within the central hall at the AA HQ, where people were running around, some armed to the teeth while others completely panicked.

“Head up to our room; you’ll be safe there. Do not speak to anyone that is not me, Marcus or the Director about what happened tonight.” Miss Walker yelled over the chaos, ushering them towards the elevator. “You did your job well. Now, it’s time for the adults to start pulling their weight. Try not to get into any more trouble before I come back to pick you up.”

With that, she was gone.

Looking out of the glass entrance, James saw a barrier, much sturdier and more energy-intensive than what was usually present, flicker into existence and finally realized that it was not just their little operation that had been going on tonight.

He was grabbed by Lauren, who started hauling him towards the elevator the others were holding open.

As the doors closed, cutting off James’ sight, he could only hope that Miss Walker and the others would get things under control.