“So you want to do special street fair events every few days?”

Troy was shocked as Scorpion Frost nodded. It hadn’t even been an entire day since the last event ended with a near brawl, but somehow the man before her was absolutely ecstatic at the events becoming a regular thing.

“All of the recordings that were shared to my gym’s social media pages showed my fighters and how skillfully they helped you all beat down those ruffians. Between the sign ups we got during the event and the visitors interested in joining the gym based on what they saw, this will honestly be my best fortnight since opening my gym all those season cycles ago. I'm beginning to believe that I needed more youngsters like yourself to help me market and grow. Might have opened more gyms by now,” said the man with a huge smile on his face. Troy nodding slowly in response, as she hadn’t believed the man when he’d stated he wanted to throw an event once a fortnight, let alone, once every few days. Yet now as she finished packing her bag to leave the gym, the gym owner she’d been hiding from all morning, couldn’t wait to talk to her.

“Anything else, sir, you seem like there is more on your mind?”

“Yes, I mean, I feel kind of embarrassed to ask you for yet another favor, when I truly haven’t even paid you for the last one you did for me by bringing all of your friends, but is there any chance that I can get the contact for your culinary master of a friend as well?”

“You mean Rob, yeah. I don’t see why not. What do you need from him? I may be able to help get you a better deal… as his services aren’t cheap,” Troy inquired her interest piqued at the interaction.

“Why yes that would be splendid. It just seems that the food he prepared was great for muscle growth, high in nutrients and even rich in ambient manas. It is the perfect kind of food that I should keep on hand to sell for my fighters and the gym patrons to help them recover more quickly between workouts, and even after professional fights,” answered Mr. Frost. Troy couldn’t keep her own smile from blooming onto her face, knowing that the foods she’d eaten in recent days had helped her improve vastly. Sore muscles and the aches caused by her all day workouts a matter of the past entirely by this point in her life. A detail that she hoped would never change.

“No problem, I’m sure Rob will love the constant orders. Let me just talk to him. I actually need to go meet up with him and the head of the bodyguards-in-training you met yesterday pretty soon. Don’t worry about paying me or anything for now, I’m not going out of my way, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I feel obligated to acknowledge the extra personal training time you have been giving me,” Troy said before giving a respectful bow, and stepping to the exit as the gym owner waved her off.

Troy habitually exited through the back of the gym to avoid the heavy pedestrian traffic the Bronze was known for, only to find a surprise waiting for her when she stepped into the alleyway behind the gym.

“Now,” was all she heard screamed before she was swarmed on all sides. Her eyes went wide, but a bag was immediately wrapped around her head. The plastic bag was enough to make her panic during the moment of alarm; the inability to breathe making it hard to think straight as punches and kicks came from every direction.

“You idiots messed with the wrong gang and now little lady we are going to be compensated in blood!”

Hearing those words Troy nearly panicked completely. She wanted to crumble, she even felt a urge to cry that she hadn’t experienced in season cycles, but then everything she’d been forced to practice and live through in recent days flooded to the forefront of her mind. An anger she’d seen flare up within Arson during their more difficult battles in the dump was now mirrored within Troy.

I am not to be bloody messed with, anymore!

Troy closed her eyes, and began to summon. Even as she was jostled around, sent back and forward by the group surrounding her in an attempt to knock her down and potentially finish her off, her power’s fury grew.

“What the…!”

Bodies made of hardened light began to fall all around Troy. Some duplicates kicked out wildly, other clones smashing down to land on anyone nearby without Troy being able to properly aim, as the remainder just fell from above to explode into violent burst of light when they struck the ground below, dazzling all who were in the vicinity.

“You wanted this from me, well okay then!” Troy yanked the bag off her face, and spun. The powerful kick she performed sent two unlucky individuals flying, and Troy didn’t stop moving for a moment.

With each landed blow on a nearby opponent, Troy summoned multiple clones to trip, punch, kick and completely dominate her foes.

Some of her clones were summoned and were commanded to literally grab the first thing that touched them. The clones then tackled, threw, and even slammed the enemies around Troy. Some of the members of what Troy assumed to be an agitated gang, were even unintentionally forced to collide with one another through the clones actions.

Meanwhile Troy gave no mercy to anything that moved that wasn’t a body made of brilliant colors. When her enemies fell to the ground during her assault, she stomped down on legs, arms and even heads. As far as she was concerned, she was in a fight for her life, and any who dared threaten her now, would not make it far when taking direct action to bring her down.

“Come on!”

Troy felt her heart beating through her chest with every action she took. A counter punch that led into a clone judo flipping a gang member. A spin kick mirrored by a hard light clone with such timing that the audible snapping of both knees on a single Mover caused panic as the young woman screamed. Every bit of the combat pushing Troy to a new level of savagery that Troy didn’t know herself capable of.

In the final moments when she looked around she hadn’t realized how many Movers she’d finished off until she counted. The two dozen gang members on the ground around her, and the couple she saw running off into the distance couldn’t have all been trying to beat her down, all at once could they?

The back door to the gym opened and Mr. Frost stepped out wide-eyed and whistling. He also seemed to look around counting the number of groaning gang members unable to get up. All either groaning or knocked unconscious. Troy wincing at the sight of a young man’s arm bent backward, not even remembering doing anything so severe during the fight.

“Well, looks like all your training is paying off, young lady,” said Mr. Frost. Nodding as he whistled in awe of the carnage once more.

“Yeah… I guess so.”

…

Xani worked at her desk within Jade’s villa. Various tools floated around the room as she worked on her current project.

With the young woman’s ability to fold her mind and complete various tasks at once, the intricacy of the project she currently was developing for Rob, Khalif, and Jasmine, was made that much easier.

She wanted to make a bag based version of the container she completed most recently, but needed Jasmine’s help to complete the idea. Xani was many things, but sewing was not one of her talents. Which was why she completed as much of the preparations she needed to before Jasmine arrived to help her finish.

Maybe we don’t even need to inscribe the bags with runes, maybe I could just make the containers small enough to fit inside a regular old backpack…

Xani didn’t like the idea for security reasons. She’d been raised in the streets of Maelstrom, and knew easily accessible anything was almost the equivalent to having a disaster alarm strapped to yourself that indicated you had valuables free for the taking.

If that fight at the street fair would have gone any worse we probably would have lost a lot of goods…

If Xani developed the bags as runic system spacial storages, she may be able to allow for the delivery teams to be connected to the bags in a way that wouldn’t allow anyone but the owner of the bag to unlock the spacial pocket, otherwise anyone with a basic knowledge of rune craft would be able to make off with anything held within.

I wonder…

She used air mana to move the various flat segments of the container she currently worked on, each piece levitating upward into the space above the desk where she sat. Which allowed for one of the tools left on the desk by Jade for Xani to work on to be brought forward by her power.

Xani watched as the perfect orb no larger than an apple floated into view from behind her, and pulsed with a flash of light that filled the room. The rune inscribed mana orb sent a perfect scan of the disassembled container directly into Xani’s mind through her Overlay to study.

The design segments were easily movable and seen from any angle in her mind, Which let Xani analyze her rune work for mistakes and symmetry. The dozens of runic symbols on the face of each piece flowed from one rune to another like cursive made from symbols that merged to create an eloquent picture. Each rune unique when isolated, but still made even more grand when added to the whole formation.

Maybe… A knock came at the door before she could finish her thought, the flicker of inspiration brimming at the edges of her mind lost as she went to answer the door.

Jasmine smiled, and waited for Xani to move aside before she entered. Xani then waved her in without an actual greeting, still fixated mostly on the designs she’d just scanned.

“So the problems I think we are going to run into is having to avoid the use of materials that are easy to tear, or rip on one end of the spectrum, while on the other end, if the material is too magically strong, we still won’t be able to use them, because if they are infused with an extraordinary amount of mana within, that may distort the effects of the containers,” Started Xani in a ramble as her thoughts bursted free all at once. Jasmine barely able to step into the room before Xani unloaded everything she thought of so far that morning.

“My runic understanding for spacial magic and runic systems is still minor, which will only get us so far. I’m not brave enough to ask Jade for help, but we still may be able to figure this out somehow,” said Xani explaining as Jasmine laid out a variety of different bags on a nearby table.

“That seems like a lot of product testing, but I don’t have much to do right now. We finished all the jobs for Mr. Kim because of how quick our turnaround rate is now, and all the new clients we’ve pulled in need us to grab the laundry from them, which I haven’t worked out with Khalif yet, so I have plenty of time to help, if need be,” offered Jasmine. Her willingness to help and the eagerness in her tone finally pulled Xani from her thoughts, and Xani looked away from the floating materials above her desk and smiled at her teammate.

“Well, that is perfect. We are going to need to get this done as soon as possible, as Khalif and Rob are going to try and meet up with us after they get done with what they are doing before lunch.”

“What are they doing?” Jasmine asked looking between the bags she’d brought for the most durable material she could find, touching each bag to test for the easily visible tingle that pulsed through the skin when interacting with items infused with ambient mana.

“Khalif mentioned something about guarding a convenient store, and Rob is interviewing delivery people with Brianna that we are going to need for us to get everything we are about to be offering product-wise to and from the dump, which may even help you get those orders you need picked up,” Xani said stepping back toward her desk, letting her stylus float back into her hand assisted by her abilities.

“Does that mean we don’t get lunch?”

“You may not,” Xani said with an accompanied snicker.

“I already put my order in…”

…

“What exactly are you doing, young man?”

Khalif turned to see Ms. Lisa, a local store owner in the Bronze staring at him as he returned items to her shelves. He and his party stood menacingly both outside and inside the store, covering exits and aisles with more expensive items.

“Umm nothing, just putting these items back. A few people just tried to rush out of here without paying, so we stopped them and brought your goods back. Sorry if we caused any trouble,” answered Khalif. The beautiful woman with the French bob hair cut and perfectly done makeup frowned slightly as she nodded, looking around to see the well dressed bodyguards-in-training in an obvious sweep of her store as they patrolled.

“And who might you be exactly? I remember your face, but not your name?”

“Khalif, ma’am. Nice to formally introduce myself.” Khalif said straightening and extending a hand that Ms. Lisa took into her own with a surprisingly firm grip.

Are you the reason I’ve done more transactions today than I’ve done in season cycles,” asked the woman, looking away as her front doorbell rang indicating another customer entering her store.

She and Khalif looked over to see one of Cole's clones walk into the store with armfuls of food and other toiletries. The clone gave a nod to Khalif and then smiled at Ms. Lisa before he trekked through the store putting the items back where they belonged.

“I don’t want to take all of the credit, but me and my guards don’t care how rich the locals think you secretly are. Doesn’t mean you deserve to be targeted and robbed every day,” said Khalif. Another young woman entered the store, looked around at Khalif and the others set up and positioned to run down anyone with any less than legal intentions, before she turned around and bolted down the street.

“You know that the gangs that all fight over this area aren’t going to like you getting in the way. This store is used to feed many without homes, jobs, or even the slightest urge to try and do the right thing to feed themselves, regardless of, how did you put it, rich I may be?”

Khalif nodded, still watching the young woman run down the street and veer into an alleyway full of loitering thugs from what Khalif could tell from a distance.

“Yeah, we hope so, I have guards I need to train in dealing with exactly the kind of bull that you have forced upon you everyday,” Khalif responded, finally looking away from the young woman when she was no longer visible. Ms. Lisa seemed to be gauging the authenticity of Khalif’s words when he looked back at the store owner, looking him up and down before her brow furrowed and she spoke up.

“You know I’m not going to be threatened into paying you all for protection, my unwillingness to cooperate with all the youthful street runners around here is why my store remains unguarded even now,” stated Ms. Lisa simply, and Khalif nodded before he smiled and responded.

“I picked your store for exactly that reason, I knew you weren’t going to pay, but I still needed a place that could use the help. We aren’t here to extort, but if you are willing to allow me and mine to train our new guard force here, the protection will be free and we will be able to groom our people in the most cutthroat environment in the Bronze,” Khalif offered innocently. The woman nodded and stretched out a hand once more.

“I hate to say this young man, but you’ve got a deal, and this may not be a surprise to you, but I may have a few other stores that would be willing to pay for your services, if you all do as well as you have today, I’d gladly spread the word along,” Ms. Lisa offered in exchange, and Khalif shook the woman’s hand once more and nodded.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way. Just don’t let your friends know that we’re working with you pro bono, and you’ve got a bloody deal!”