Tina kicked open the door with both Jake and Grace on her shoulders and was greeted by several people in black standing outside. Some held flaming bottles in their hands which made it obvious they weren't friends to any of the three there.

"Move it!" Grace shouted as she saw them.

Tina placed both of them on the ground. "Don't worry, these guys won't last more than a few minutes." She stated as she looked at the attackers in black pulling out weapons. She held out her hand near the entrance.

"No, you idiot I'm saying we should run away, did you not remember about the darts I talked about earlier!" Grace nearly shouted at her.

She had gotten up but Jake was still on the floor struggling to stand.

Her spear barreled down the hallway, went through the door and sat comfortably in her hand. The confidence on her face soon turned to worry when she remembered that she had no means of curing herself.

"Uh, actually running away doesn't sound that bad." She said. The people outside already had their blow guns aimed at them. So she had only one option. She picked up Jake and ran back inside the burning house. The fire only reached the roof, so the inside wasn't an inferno yet. Grace just barely reacted to this choice as she ran behind her and closed the door.

Several small thunking sounds were heard after she closed the door. She turned to Tina in distress.

"You bitch, at least say something before you move." She shouted at her.

"Oh fuck off, you're the one who told me to move it," Tina responded with Jake on her shoulder.

"For the time being let's escape through a window," Grace responded as she walked through the now burning house. The increase in temperature was noticeable and there was a smoky smell but it hadn't yet reached the floor of the house. She leaned against it and peeked her head out the broken window. Several darts flew inside the room as soon as her nose came into sight.

"Shit, how many are there?" Tina complained.

"Enough to keep the house surrounded. We should be glad they're not excited about entering this death trap like we are because thanks to a certain someone the door's broken." Grace responded.

"Oh shut up, you act like they couldn't have done that on their own," Tina said.

Now this was a conundrum. How was Tina supposed to protect these guys if a single stray dart would put her out of commission? She didn't have curing magic and the new move she had learnt and practised against was strictly offensive. And with the smell of smoke in her nose and an unbearable heat, she was stumped on what to do.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Shit," she commented. She looked to the window and stuck her spear and the darts came flying.

("Maybe if I keep doing this they'll deplete all their darts?")

She soon did it again but got no reaction this time. She decided to try her face and they were quick to attack with the darts.

("Dammit, they figured it out already")

"Don't forget there are ones out front, too," Grace commented.

As Tina sat there at a loss at what to do, Jake raised his hand.

"Could you guys open all the doors and windows?" He asked.

"Would that work?" She asked.

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

It seemed they used all the Molotovs they possessed, as the sound of them being thrown had stopped for some time now.

"Well..."

The flames in the roof were now visible and the flames on the outside walls provided a warm light.

As the women stood outside watching the building go down in flames, they began talking to each other, like they were in the middle of town instead of murdering people.

"You sure we should have backed them into the house?" One of the women in black asked.

"Of course. Only Avis is allowed to use the fast-acting poisons and we didn't have enough time to prepare any more paralysis darts. This is the safest way to defeat them."

"But didn't she say to get rid of the short one first?"

"There's no need, didn't you see him limping when he came out? All we have to do is sit back and enjoy the light show." Another commented.

One further away than the others weakly commented "Grace…" As she saw the housefire pick up.

But something else drew her attention. The air around her began to feel odd. It was as if the atmosphere had picked up a slight amount of humidity. She was very sensitive to changes like this but it seemed the others didn't notice. Well if they said nothing about it then it probably wasn't anything serious.

As she watched the fire, it suddenly vanished.

"huh?"

But she quickly realised vanished wasn't the right word. Her entire vision was filled with dim red and that slowly became black. She fell to her feet and one of her legs was in agony.

"Aahha"

"Damnit what is this!?"

"Fuck they got!"

"My eyes can't see!"

Her allies were in distress shouting. She tried to stand up but the pain sent her back to the floor.

"What the hell is going on?" She asked.

She crawled and crawled before stumbling into someone standing up.

"What the hell is going on? What happened to our eyes?" she asked the person.

Tina stood above the woman with a spear in hand.

("Bless above that Jake's magic only needs a small concentration of mana to work. I think the fire might have provided some help as well with the wind currents it generated spreading his mana outside.")

As she was about to bring the spear down on the woman in front of her Grace reached out and barely stopped it, having it go only a few centimetres into the woman on the floor.

She screamed in pain and struggled on the floor.

"What's the big idea you annoying bitch?" Tina asked.

Grace paid her no attention and quickly took her mask off.

"M-maggie?"

It seemed that Grace and Tina producing their mana so close to her stopped the effects of Jake's magic.

She tried to crawl away but Tina wasted no time kicking her head, knocking her out cold.