I stared at the outstretched hands. Grabbing their hands, I shook them. Lucine went over to computer and started talking to the men on the big screen. William Jr. squatted down and tried to revive the knocked-out maniac. I winced. My neck was still killing me. I ran a self-check. Shaking around each of my appendages, it seems I wasn’t hurt anywhere. The bruises from the past few days still stung and I couldn’t turn my head, but I was fine. Hearing a sound behind me, I turned around. It was Morpheus.

“Hey what happened here?”

“Nothing to see here. Move along.” Startled, I looked back. It seems William succeeded with his endeavor.

“Sir, the captives are loose. You hired us to capture them but now they are moving freely. Didn’t you want to ransom them?”

The mad scientist laughed and said, “No I just said that to hire you. I told you to not damage them. That’s because I know them and was just giving their relatives a show.” I narrowed my eyes.

The scientist stood up and approached the merc.

“That also makes me question.” He pointed at my face. “What happened here? I told you to bring them unharmed. Look at that face. Does that seem unharmed?”

Looking at the two others in the room, I raised my eyebrow. They averted their eyes. Ignoring the debating kidnappers, I walked out the door. Before I could completely extricate myself from the situation, Tanny called out to me.

“Hey, I know you’re pissed and I get that, but you have to understand the importance of what I was doing. I am almost at an important breakthrough in my research. Have you ever heard of Gaussian weaponry?”

Hearing his question, I stood in place. Turning back, I said, “Yes I’ve heard of it. Isn’t it an electromagnetic gun?”

With a pleased expression the scientist started rambling. “Yes exactly! A Gauss rifle, or coilgun, is a weapon which uses a sequential magnetic field being turned on and off along the barrel of the gun to fire a bullet. The bullet itself is magnetized and the sequential activations of the magnetic field causes the bullet to accelerate. The main problem that scientists faced beforehand was the implementation of a power source and the overall development made it more affordable to use normal firearms. It was the same with railguns because they need an overwhelming amount of power and the materials quickly wear down. We managed to overcome some of the limitations yet we haven’t done the same with the Gauss rifle. With magic as our aid, there is no way we can’t achieve this level of sophistication. The stuff of science fiction is becoming reality through the usage of magic.”

I stood there and stared at the man. I turned back.

In a hopeful tone he said, “Aren’t you also a fellow scientist? Surely you can sympathize with my plight.”

I felt my eyes turn red. The rage seeped through my veins. I took a deep breath because I knew I had to control my emotions. After successfully hiding my emotions, I turned around, raised one eyebrow, and strode to the brown-haired maniac. “Don’t you feel ashamed comparing us? You do realize why I’m a scientist? While yes knowledge is great and scientific advancement is fantastic, you should think of the consequences of your actions. I want to be a doctor because I want to help people. While I won’t act like a messiah, after all the profession also pays well and garners a lot of respect, but I could have easily been a researcher. After all, my internships and experience has more to do with biomedical research than actual medicine, but the reason why I am pursuing this career path is assurance that I do something to help people. People like you who talk about advancement of science, do you realize what you are doing? You are making weapons. Sure, weapons out of science fiction that are admittedly very cool, but in the end, they are weapons. Things used to kill, hurt, and take away family members of individuals.”

Everyone in the room just looked at me with a weird expression. Tanny’s face adopted a look of disdain. “Don’t you realize how foolish you sound.”

I laughed. “Of course, I’m not totally against weapons. I think that these types of weapons must be developed in due time. I also believe that people like you shouldn’t be in charge of projects like these. You obviously prescribe by the philosophy; the ends justify the means. I abhor the notion that an individual such as yourself can impact millions of people.”

Before anyone could respond, I decided to ignore whatever else they could ask. I walked all the way down the hallway and found the gigantic double doors which the Russian macho man pulled me through. Pushing through, I saw Chad and Russia talking to a cluster of men in black suits. Surveying the location, I noticed an especially angry man in a black suit.

“Steven!”

“Solare!” And the bromance commenced as I ran forward into his open embrace. Nope. He did however come over and inspect my face. “Nice, a new one. What did you do this time?”

“Nothing much. I just tried to resist my kidnapping and it didn’t turn out too well. You should see the other guy. Oh, wait…” I looked towards Chad. “He’s fine.” Picking up on what I was saying, Steven gave me an arrogant grin. He walked towards the asshole. I lurked behind him, hoping to see a show.

He interrupted the conversation Chad was having with another suit and started talking. “So… what’s your name?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The prick crossed his arms. “I never give my name to anyone else if I can’t help it.”

“It’s Chad.” He gave me a dirty look while Steven shook his head.

“Well, Chad, honestly it doesn’t matter what your name is.” Steven scanned him up and down. “Looking by your outfit, it hasn’t been dry cleaned and pressed in a while. Not that into cleanliness, are you? It’s obvious you’re a mercenary but I can also see a tattoo peaking up over your collar, and I’m willing to bet by the look of you might have more. Some of them might have been even done in prison.”

I saw Steven’s grin grow wider. “And by the way you reacted you definitely have some prison tats. Your suit is also one of the cheaper versions probably priced at a hundred dollars. You need to get that stitching looked at. The faded food stains on your shirt shows that either you suck at using a washing machine or you’ve been using that for a while. Now it doesn’t take a genius to put this all together and figure out you might not be that well off. While criminal prosecution is a no go because of the various influential players in this incident, we can definitely go to civilian court. Mr. King over there has a very nice redhead friend and myself who would be more than happy to help him get some remuneration.”

Chad’s face got grimmer with each sentence spoken. “What’s your point?”

“Oh nothing. Just threatening you so you won’t retaliate when I hurt you.” Confusion Appeared on Chad’s face. “Don’t worry, you’ll understand.” Without any interruption, Steven reached out with his right hand and placed it on Chad’s neck.

“What are you doing?” Chad lifted his arms and tried to remove Steven’s arms.

“This.” Reaching out with his right leg, he hooked Chad’s legs to provide a pivot and slammed Chad’s head into the ground. Unconscious and probably concussed, Chad was down for the count.

As Steven walked towards me, I gave him two thumbs up. “Violent. I like it.” He stopped for a second and took out his phone. He touched the screen and picked up a call.

After talking for a few minutes, he handed the phone over to me. “It’s your favorite red headed female.”

“The president?”

“No Solare Anna. Also, I thought you hated the president.”

Putting the phone up to my ear, I heard the screams of a banshee.

“Solare!! Are you alright?!? Once I got a call from the police I contacted Steven. I’m happy you put me as your immediate contact but still do you realize how panicked I was? How dare you. Steven filled me in and I heard there was a complicated backstory to all this.”

“Yeah well so this mad scientist guy…”

“I don’t want to hear it,” interrupted Anna. “What I want to do is to get you shipped off to college so you can learn how to defend yourself.”

“What do you mean? I’m learning how to use magic. Oh. You want me to learn how to attack? I though with my affinities I would be a support mage.”

“You’ll learn more about it when you get there. Now give the phone back to Steven.”

Begrudgingly, I gave the phone back to its rightful owner. He turned away and talked a bit more. After what seemed like ages but in reality was like two minutes, he came back and guided me towards his car. It was parked near the entrance to the warehouse.

“Hey Steven, so how long was I kidnapped because I was unconscious most of the time.”

“It’s been a day. Mr. Chen was contacted very early on. As soon as I found out, I asked him and he told me he was contacted by his associate. He told me you won’t be hurt and you would be back home in about two days.”

“Yeah, Mr. Chen. Never gonna talk to that guy again. You know it was because of him that I got kidnapped, right?”

Getting into the car, Steven sighed. He waited for me to get in before speaking. “You know you would have had to face something like this sometime.”

“What?”

“With your talent people would be gunning after you. You already experienced it once with that Coalition incident. If you didn’t get accepted early due to Mr. Chen’s help, who know what might have happened.”

“Look Solare all I’m saying is give the old man a chance. He didn’t mean for you to get kidnapped or hurt, so don’t go cutting ties. You aren’t some chosen person with amazing plot armor to get you through every incident. You are a human like the rest of us, and sometimes acting on your feelings like this is the worst thing to do. Think about it. Without his support in the ISM, who are you going to rely upon? That place is chocked full of influential people and someone like you, an orphan with no background, would be a lamb for the slaughter. You don’t to respond right away. Just dwell on this.”

He started up the car and we pulled out of the lot.

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I stood in the doorway of my ruined apartment. On the ground was a bright yellow line which had the black words, CAUTION, printed on it. The phosphorous paint was a magical invention which combined something and another thing to create a paint which blocks unapproved personnel. Usually a police officer with some skill in magic erects a barrier but after a couple of days, the barrier falls down. It was just my luck. The barrier wasn’t down yet. I slammed the barrier a couple of times with my fists. Soon afterwards, an officer came towards me.

“Hey! Get away from there! It’s a crime scene.”

“It’s also my house,” I retorted. “Hi, I’m the resident of this fine apartment so can I please get in my house?”

The officer cocked his head sideways and looked a bit puzzled. “Ok… can I see your ID?” With a sigh, I brought out my driver’s license and waited until the guy stopped inspecting it. “Ok. This seems legit. I’ll go get the barrier mage to approve you so just come with me.”

I was brought down to the first floor of the complex where another officer was sipping on some coffee. “Sir, the resident of the apartment wants to get in to his house.” The coffee sipper raised an eyebrow and waved his hand.

“The barrier’s down. He can go.” He went back to minding his own business. The intern faced me and said, “You can now enter your apartment.”

I trudged back up the stairs and walked over the police paint. The broken down remains of my door greeted me. Stepping over the debris I walked in. Most of the things were intact but my bedroom and the front of the apartment were a mess.

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

Two days later, I was at the Coalition office once again. With me stood Anna and Steven. The transport shuttle came over. It had a giant ISM label on it. Anna came and gave me a big hug. “You better call or I’m going to kill you.”

“Bye Anna. Bye Steven.” Holding my medium sized suitcase and a backpack, I moved towards the shuttle. I could see other people coming my way as well. A girl with three gigantic suitcases, a guy wearing shades and a fedora, another person who had basically the equipment I did, and a couple more people. The shuttle doors opened. Getting on the shuttle, I waited to see what my future had in store for me.