Albert woke up with a groan. The edges of his vision sported the familiar blackness to them that he had, unfortunately, gotten used to as of late. Feeling the pain in every inch of his body, he tried to pull himself up, hearing the sound of scuttering feet closing in.

Panic threatened to take over his mind as he struggled to remember how he ended up in this situation. He was in a bed, covered by an ungodly amount of heavy sheets, but he didn’t seem to be bound. His head was pounding. Which, compounded with the black edges of his vision, was compatible with an overuse of Focus. To defend himself?

If that was the case, then he might be in danger.

The sound of feet drew closer. Albert’s heart rate increased.

Then, all of a sudden, Scrappy’s face appeared right above Albert’s.

The boy was clean, all tidied up and his hair was silky and smooth, black as the night. Reflexively, Albert pulled himself away from the too-close face, wearing an expression of utter disbelief. A semblance of sense returned to his mind, and he had the presence to look around and noticed that he was still in his room, still at the inn where he was sleeping the night. Light from the window told him that it was way past breakfast time, however.

The adrenaline faded, and exhaustion took over. Snippets of memory began to come back to him as he pulled himself up, smiling at Scrappy’s concerned face. The boy was on his knees on the wooden floor next to the bed, unmoving but with tears at the corner of his eyes that were barely under control.

“Hey.” Albert said gently.

“Sir Albert, sir! You are okay! I was so worried, that I was!”

Albert decided he didn’t want to suffer the heat anymore and pulled the many layers of bedsheets away. With a wave of his hand, but not before checking that he had the Focus for it, he refreshed himself. He had been sweating quite a lot.

“Why are you in my room?” Albert asked. He didn’t want to come across as confrontational, but he saw the boy wince. A pang of guilt struck him.

“I…”

“It’s okay. I’m sure you meant well. But how did you come in?”

Scrappy seemed to calm himself down a bit. “I had to steal the spare keys.” He muttered under his breath. “The innkeeper wouldn’t let me in, he would not. Said I was a thief and almost threw me out, but I was too swift, that I was.”

There was a pause, during which the boy’s eyes unfocused for a moment. Then he shook his head and returned to the present. “You didn’t come at breakfast, that you didn’t. I was worried, I wanted to check up on you but… I waited, and waited. Then I stole the spare keys. That’s when I found you unconscious on the floor, that I did. I dragged you on the bed, and figured that it’s cold so I stole many blankets and covered you up all good. You’re quite heavy, sir. But I managed.”

He nodded, clearly proud of his work. “You might have overdone it with the sheets.” Albert laughed.

“It’s cold this time of the year, and the human skin is not very good at keeping warm, that it’s not.”

Albert shook his head at the weird turn of phrase. By now, he had gathered enough wits to understand what had happened last night that tapped him until now. He had been trying to do a very simple thing: he wanted to use his Power to read Scrappy’s mind. The question he wanted answered was simple: does he have ill intent? Can I trust him?

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It seemed like even a simple mind read was too much and the backlash made Albert faint yet again.

You need to be more careful. Bending is dangerous. You should let me worry about Focus costs and do the COPY:skill method.

Albert did not reply. He did examine the notification he had at the corner of his vision, however.

Power 28 -> 33

He had dipped below 8% Focus, perhaps into truly dangerous territory. While it was true that he probably could not kill himself by accident, he sure as hell could come close to that. The migraine, the cramps and the intense void he felt in his stomach were all quite concerning red flags. At least Jeff had collected yet another data point for his ongoing study on Albert’s Power and how it worked.

“Okay…” Albert said, plopping his throbbing head back on the pillow. He produced several coins to give to Scrappy. “Bring me some food, will ya? I’m pretty sure we are past breakfast time.”

***

Scrappy did as she was instructed, making her way towards a very good food stall she knew from her time before. All the while, she wondered about what her new master had done to incur such a wrath from the heavens, what sort of strange powers he commanded and how dangerous they were. She figured she should never let him out of her sight again, she couldn’t afford to be too late the next time an incident happened and find herself alone again.

When she came back with the food, her master thanked her and they sat on the floor to eat. He did call her a boy once again, which made her heart jump just like the first time it happened, and she wondered whether she should tell him the truth or wait. It wasn’t like it mattered at all, nor did she have a reason to hide her true nature, but she feared that the ship had sailed and mentioning it now would be weird. Instead, she tried her best to remember proper etiquette when eating, and had her fill of delicious meat skewers.

“Quite messy, aren’t we?” Her master said, noticing the juices dripping from her chin.

She cast down her ears, but he didn’t notice because her ears no longer moved. Instead, he smiled warmly at her and with a snap of his fingers all the grime disappeared like it had never been there to begin with.

She yelped in amazement, the noise coming out on its own and she immediately covered her mouth with her hands, face burning with embarrassment. After they were done eating, and her master ensured her he was rested and ready, she took him to the Guild. They took a shortcut only she and a few others knew, and were there in less than ten minutes.

The Guild was an unassuming wooden door built against the stone of a building, in a narrow alley sloping up near the center of Bastion. She had never personally been inside, but she knew that all kinds of weird humans – and non-humans – used the place as some sort of meeting place for their activities. The people who hung around the guild were usually the most powerful, as well as dangerous, but with what little she had seen of her master’s powers and the way he handled himself, she was sure it would be no problem.

Indeed, her master simply strolled up to the door, using his taller and wider frame to bully his way to it and pushed it open in one fluid motion. Inside, someone had to have been standing too close to the range of the door opening, because a curse preceded the sound of glass shattering only an instant later.

The man sprawled on the floor smelled dangerous and powerful, and the way he glared towards them made her shrink behind her master. He, on the other hand, stared the man down with uninterested and cold eyes, as if he was regarding an inanimate object. There was not only an intensity to the stare, but a sense of impending doom and death and danger she had never thought her master was capable of producing.

It was then and there that Scrappy realized that, actually, Sir Albert was like that with everyone except her, treating everyone like they were less than the dirt beneath his boots. That was why he didn’t care about dressing up nicely, although he made sure to smell very pleasant and never to stink.

The man, offended, charged up a punch at her master. She almost jumped ahead into the danger, something she didn’t even think herself capable of doing until a moment ago, but her master was faster and did something to the man. What it was, she didn’t know, but she knew what happened after.