Jon didn’t want to bump into anyone, so he kept a steady jog while moving left and right through weave through the few people in the street.

Running at full speed probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Even with Helia on his shoulder, the kidnapper moved swiftly and speedily through the street.

Thankfully, he was still easy to keep track of. Jon watched the man’s movements to keep track of him.

“Jon!” Helia cried from the man’s shoulder.

The man made a sharp turn and ran into what appeared to be an alley between buildings.

Alley. Remembering the alleyways of the other town before this, Jon drew his blunderbuss and turned the corner once he reached it.

The kidnapper was keeping Helia in front of him with his hand wrapped around her neck. He didn’t seem to be strangling her, but it was still hard for her to escape. He held a dagger at her neck.

“Don’t move!” The kidnapper yelled. He looked incredibly nervous.

In fact, now that he was close, the kidnapping didn’t appear as threatening. He actually seemed nervous. Jon wondered if he had expected him to follow or not.

Jon also wondered why the man was holding a dagger to Helia’s face, even though he had kidnapped Helia in the first place.

Anyways, Jon had a clear shot at the man’s head, so he brought the gun down to his hip and fired.

The blast hit the man in the face and sent his body flying into the depths of the alley behind, leaving Helia unscathed except for the fluttering of her dress caused by the gust of the energy.

She ran back to Jon and jumped into his chest.

“Thank you, thank you, thank-”

She grabbed way tighter than he was expecting. It gave him flashbacks of Amalia, even if it was no where as strong.

“Jon, behind you!” she yelled.

Behind?

He turned to see several people standing behind him. They were all wearing matching small black vests and each held a dagger or two in their hands.

“Give up the girl!” One of the men said.

“No,” Jon said, determined to keep Helia safe. He realized that what he said wasn't very open for a respons.

“Why?” Jon added after.

“Don’t ask why?” The man responded, clearly annoyed. “Just give her to us, or you won’t get hurt!”

“I won’t get hurt,” Jon said, bracing his gun. He ignored the fact that the man was asking to take Helia when she was already in his grasp,. His brain racked for ways to be able to talk the men down, but his body wouldn’t let him relax his grip on his gun.

“There’s 5 of us and one of you!” the man replied. “You can’t shoot all of us!”

“I can,” Jon said.

“Not at the same time!”

“Maybe,” Jon replied. He was determined to try.

“Jon, shoot them!” Helia yelled.

Two of the men spilt up and ran towards the opposite walls of the alleyway, running along the sides towards Jon’s direction. Their hands seemed to keep them stuck to the wall as their quick feet propelled them across the wall.

Another two ran forward, and the last thief leaped high in the air towards Jon.

Formation. Jon hadn’t had several people come at him at once before. He had to come up with a strategy first, and one that wasn’t "shoot them one at a time."

He also had Helia to worry about, as well as the two walls beside him, so his movement options were limited.

The four men stopped and turned suddenly stopped and turned to watch an airborne Tallow land on the ground behind them. Her back was facing Helia and her captor, but Tallow didn't seem to care.

“You guys wanna take on a girl with only one arm before you go after anyone else?” she asked.

“Her first!” one of the men cried.

The two men who had clung to opposite walls both the opposite way back towards her. The two men on the ground turned back to her as well.

Now, Jon was able to relax his grip on his gun. He probably should have been worried, with Tallow still in apparent recovery, but his body wouldn’t let him.

Tallow bent her knees, then pushed herself off the ground towards one of the vagrants on the wall.

She landed on him with her feet, kicking him hard and pressing him into the wall before immediately bouncing off of him. Her initial velocity along with the extra wind mana she was blowing from her mouth sent her into the man on the opposite wall as well,, slamming him into it with her back before landing on the floor.

The two vagrants peeled off the walls and landed on either side of her, unconscious.

“Come on." Tallow drew her dagger from her back with her free hand. She poInted it and beckoned the last two kidnappers.

“I’ll even use the small one,” she taunted.

After a brief pass of eye contact between the men, they broke away in a sprint.

One of them quickly ran behind Tallow’s back in an attempt to divide her attention.

“Oh, how original!” Tallow exclaimed, lifting off the ground like a feather and flipping over the man as he tried to tackle her from behind. She landed on the ground lightly, then began to shuffle feet in place.

“You guys… need to learn some footwork!”

Tallow threw her dagger at an angle at the ground near the men.

It bounced off the floor and zoomed towards the man’s head, knocking him off of his feet into what seemed to be an unconscious state. It ricocheted back into Tallow’s hand right after.

Special dagger, Jon remembered. Liz dagger.

“Haha!” Tallow bowed over and laughed. “Oh man, this dagger’s way better than the big one.”

She started walking towards the last man, who walked back in fear.

“Now, listen,” Tallow said.

The man tried to scramble up the wall, but then Tallow quickly caught up to him.

“Don’t even try it!”

She climbed after him and grabbed him by the black jacket before tossing him back to the ground.

He landed on his back and began to crawl backwards on his hands and feet in fear while Tallow slowly walked up to him.

“Now let’s try this again,” Tallow said. “As you can tell, I’ve saved your friend by only hitting him with the blunt end of my dagger. Or maybe he has a skull fracture and I killed him. Whoops.”

Tallow continued walking calmly as the man backed away, showing no concern for his fight.

“But, unlucky for you,” she continued. “You’re the last one standing. So, I’ll let you know right now, I’ve been trained with at least 7 different ways to torture a man. But if that doesn’t work, there’s also the list of 20 that I’ve made up on my own time, or maybe we can just go the normal route of poking you until you tell me something useful.”

“We just wanted to rob the girl!” the guy said. “That’s it?”

“This girl?” Tallow asked. “This particular girl?”

The man’s eyes widened. “I… I guess.”

“You guess?” Tallow asked. “Really?”

She took a small bag out of her pouch and held it out.

The man patted his own hips.

“How’d you get that?” he asked.

“You guys suck at being thieves,” Tallow said, “or maybe the standards are lower here. You see, back in my land, we actually know how to steal things, like actually steal. Not grab people and beat them up and take their money. No, they won’t even know it.”

She dropped the bag to the floor. “But really, why would thieves be given money to steal something. If you were really that good of a thief, you would have accepted the money and just not tried to rob the dumb girl.”

“...You’re right…” the man nodded. “I didn’t think-”

“I’m bored,” Tallow said, feigning a yawn. “Jon?”

Jon shot the man in the back.

He flew towards Tallow, who held her arm out and caught him under the neck in a clothesline with her open elbow.

He flipped over her arm before landing on the floor hard.

Jon would have usually felt bad for shooting someone in the back, but they had surprised him by going around his back, so he thought it was fair this time.

“Whoa…” Helia slowly stepped out from hiding behind Jon. “That was amazing! You-”

Tallow stomped up to her, erasing Helia’s grin from her face.

“I wasn’t joking about the seven ways of torture,” Tallow continued, “so, you might want to tell me what’s going on, or I’m gonna poke you until something or the other comes out.”

Jon was debating whether to stop Tallow or not. Like before, he decided to trust her before. She seemed good at trying to drive information out of people, and he wanted to know more about what was happening, so he could protect Helia effectively.

Still, he was a little shameful about letting it happen.

“I… I… I don’t know these people,” Helia said, trembling.

“I know you don’t.” Tallow flipped her dagger so that she held it by its blade and pushed the handle into Helia’s shoulder.

“Doesn’t mean you aren’t hiding anything,” Tallow said.

“Please,” Helia said, “me and my brother just want to tag along. We don’t want to-”

“Your what?” Tallow asked, confusion quickly overtaking her angry glare.

“My brother!” Helia repeated. “We-”

She covered her mouth in shock.

“You’re screwing your own brother?” Tallow asked.

“No!” Helia released her hand. “I am not screwing that dimwit! Ew! He-”

She covered her mouth again in shock.

Tallow used her blade’s hilt to pry Helia’s hands from her face.

“Yeah, you’re gonna need to spill the beans,” Tallow said. “Capisce?”

Helia’s face drained of fear, instead replaced by tiredness.

“I…”

She slowly pushed away Tallow’s dagger by the blade part with his fingers so that it wasn’t pointing towards her anymore.

“I can tell that the blade is extremely dull by just looking at it,” Helia said. “And yet, it appears to fit completely with your needs and capabilities. Magical?”

“...Kind of…” Tallow remarked. “I…”

“In fact, may I?” She grabbed Tallow’s dagger by the blade end completely.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Tallow, mildly stunned, didn’t fight back once Helia took it in her own hand.

“I really need to get back and buy that carpet… for my brother,” Helia said. She grabbed her long hair in one hair and pulled it back before she began to hack through it.

“After that, then we can talk about what happened,” Helia proposed.

“Promise?” Tallow asked.

“Promise.” The dagger worked through the hair easier than expected Jon had expected, and a large chunk of it had dropped to the ground.

“I told Stewart that I should change my appearance more than just my clothes,” she muttered. “But no… his cover for us was enough…”

Helia flipped the dagger onto its blade end and held it up to Tallow, who took it while giving Helia a skeptical eye.

“We mean you no danger,” Helia continued kneeling down to pick up the chunks of her hair. “Honestly, we-”

“You guys weren’t even carrying weapons when we found you,” Tallow said. “You were carrying tools around.”

“...You went through our stuff?” Helia asked.

“Come on,” Tallow put her dagger back in its sheath. “Can you blame me? You were acting shady like shit. And besides, it all looked like normal tools, so your covers fit.”

Helia grimaced. “Do you trust us?”

“Trust you?” Tallow shrugged. “I don’t trust anybody. Heck, I couldn’t care less. But Hector is the one you should be afraid of.”

Helia frowned. “I see. The fabric-”

“Don’t worry about the fabric,” Tallow said. “We don’t even have to go back. We can cover the cost here.”

And with that, Helia and Tallow picked up all of the bags of money off of the thieves.

Jon heard Helia apologize to the two men she picked up the bags from before handing them to Tallow.

“They weren’t gonna use them,” Tallow said. “They were just gonna steal more money.”

“But they have to be stealing the money for a reason,” Helia said. “Isn’t it to eat?”

Tallow rolled her eyes. She reached inside of her hip bag, grabbing a potato and tossing it out onto the ground near the kidnapper’s bodies.

“There,” Tallow said, “world hunger solved. Let’s go.”

When she turned around she saw more people in black jackets surrounding her.

“What the hell?” She turned to Helia. “Why did you distract us?”

Jon ran up to Tallow’s side and put his back against hers.

“I don’t think these guys are trying to go after the girl,” Tallow asked. “I think they’re out for revenge.”

“It’s them!” One of them cried.

“Yep…” Tallow equipped her dagger in her free hand again. “Watch my bad side.”

Jon nodded, then leaned over to better cover Tallow’s sling arm.

Even as Jon started shooting and Tallow started leaping around, a large beam of energy dropped down from the sky to the floor, knocking down attackers with it’s ascent.

Jon took a quick look over his shoulder to see Mercy, who he had assumed just landed, but she was already moving too fast for Jon to follow her with his eyes.

It didn’t help that all of the people being tossed around were also wearing black clothing, making it hard to differentiate who was who other than the fact that Mercy was the one still standing.

He turned back around and shot at an approching target. He then stepped backward and steadily shot off a consecutive round of shots at the next few vagrants.

Of the three people approaching him, one was knocked down the attic, but the other two had easily rolled around them and were heading straight towards him.

Mmm… slippery… Jon didn’t have to worry too much as Mercy and Tallow both ran by and took out each of the men with a single punch before leaping away to deal with the others.

Jon looked for more men to shoot, but by the looked around, all of the men were down.

“...do any of these guys even know how to use mana?” Mercy asked. “I shouldn’t have been able to take them down in one punch unless they wanted.”

“I dunno,” Tallow shrugged. “Maybe all of my strength went into my one arm.”

“I’m serious,” Mercy said. “These guys aren’t very good.”

“You mean they should be professional assassins, yeah?” Tallow replied.

“Ugh.” Mercy shook her head. “Nevermind. Stewart! You can come out!”

Stewart crawled out from behind a nearby stand.

“You’re all still alive!” he said. “How goodie!”

“Oh, shut up, Stewart!” Helia yelled, stunning him into silence.

“I’ve been waiting to say that all day,” Tallow muttered. “Now can we buy those damn carpets already?”

“Ohh, where?” Stewart forgot to be scared, picking his head up to look around.

Jon didn’t know why, but he had a sudden urge to shoot him.

After buying the carpets, Jon and Tallow held up a carpet each by the shoulder.

Even though they were called carpets, Jon realized that there was much more fabric for an actual carpet.

He wished that they could have brought the carriage with them, but he didn’t want to say anything. He could feel the tension in the air, even though he didn’t know who was giving it off this time.

He decided to stay quiet as they all walked back to the inn.

“Where did all of your hair go?” Stewart asked Helia as they walked. “Did the thieves get at it?”

“I got at it, Stewart,” Helia explained, “I had too. They found us.”

“They found us?” Stewart responded. “Oh, boy. Maybe I should have left another sign outside of town.”

“You didn’t want that to happen,” Tallow said, “Hector would have roasted you.”

“Oh, dear,” Stewart muttered. “I assume he didn’t like my first sign.”

“He doesn’t like a lot of things,” Tallow said. “You included.”

“Me? But-”

Stewart stopped as the group got close to the inn. Hector and Mallory were talking outside when they saw them approaching.

“What is that?” Hector asked, pointing at the carpets.

“Carpeting, for our arrival,” Stewart explained. “We can’t show up to the clansman without any free offerings.”

“Okay.” Mercy crossed her arms. “You’re informed enough to not just say ‘clans’ anymore. Sharptooth clan.”

“Yes. Our host, the Sharptooth clan.” Stewart nodded furiously. He then saw Helia’s scowl in his direction.

Hector caught wind of Hwindelia’s changed appearance.

“Why is your hair so short now?” Hector asked. He then looked around at everyone. “Did you get in a fight?”

‘Just some thieves,” Tallow explained. “No big deal.”

“Thieves?” Hector raised his eyebrow. “Thieves, here? But you’re not even carrying any money on you!”

“That’s not exactly true,” Stewart started, “but-”

“They’re being followed,” Mercy said. “Helia was kidnapped.”

Hector and Mallory looked at each other in surprise.

“Kidnapped?” Hector exclaimed. “Followed?”

“Yeah,” Tallow responded, “but in all honestly, they should’ve stuck to kids.”

“Followed?” Hector repeated. “Why are you being followed? You wouldn’t have a reason to be followed except for-”

His signature glare came back to his face. “You told people you were being summoned for a job in the clans?”

“Yeah,” Stewart nodded. “Of course!”

“But I thought you didn’t have a family!” Hector’s voice started to raise.

“Well, no, but…” Stewart started to tremble again. “I mean, we-”

“You gave away your location!” Hector’s hands came to his head again. “Are you trying to get killed!”

“Hector,” Mercy started. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine!” Hector yelled. “We can’t just bring along people who have kidnappers following them! Why is any of this even happening?”

“Bro, calm down,” Mallory said. “They said it was just thieves. They probably weren’t even very good.”

“They weren’t used to a straight-up fight,” Mercy said. “That was out best assumption. Or Tallow’s anyway. They weren’t very professional at all.”

Hector took a deep breath.

“Sure. Fine. Thieves are everywhere. They usually try to profit off of special enovoys cause they do carry a lot of money sometimes. What were they trying to take? Money?”

“Her,” Jon answered.

“Just her?” Hector asked.

Jon nodded. “Yeah.”

He saw panic in Mallory's face before Hector blew up on the spot.

“Bounty hunters! You’re being chased by bounty hunters!”

“They didn’t seem very bounty hunter to me,” Stewart replied. “Because, how is that any different than being kidnapped by thieves.”

“That’s ‘cause they were hired by bounty hunters!” Hector reached up and grabbed Stewart by the arms. “That’s terribly different! You can’t pay off bounty hunters!”

Hector let go and squeezed the side of his head and groaned. “There’s usually an agenda behind a bounty hunt other than money. Do you currently have a bounty on you?”

“...Not that I know of…” Stewart began.

Hector growled.

“But!” Stewart held his hand up to stop Hector from shouting more. “We didn’t do anything illegal!”

“You don’t need to do anything illegal to have a bounty on you,” Hector explained, clearly annoyed. “Just existing is enough. You just have to be of interest enough to somebody to want to bring you in.”

“That makes you a bounty hunter,” Tallow said, pointing at Hector.

“I’m not… that’s different!” Hector shook his head. “So you guys knew that you had a bounty, or you didn’t know.”

“...we suspected…” Stewart said. “Hypothesized. Theorized. Pondered. That’s why we put that danger sign on the road,”

“Dear mother of God,” Mallory said out loud. “That was the worst thing you could say right now.”

Hector’s shoulders seemed to be shaking at his side. Jon was wondering if he should put the carpet down and try to comfort Hector.

Instead, Helia walked up to him and placed a calm hand on his chest plate.

“We’re sorry,” Helia said. “We don’t have to stay around any longer. We can make the rest of the way ourselves.

Instead of another blow-up, Hector just let out an exasperated sigh.

“We can pay you for your services,” Helia said. “Please, just tell us the amount and-”

“ Keep your petty change,” Hector responded. “I don’t care about the money, it’s not important to me. But everyone else here is gonna get involved with whatever’s this is. So, I hope that you can compensate for them enough.”

“Thanks for looking out, for us,” Tallow said sarcastically.

Helia turned to the rest of the group. “You’ve already done so much for us,” Helia replied, “and we haven’t paid for any of it. Me and my brother should-”

“Helia!” Stewart exclaimed.

“Oh, shut up, they know already,” Helia replied, silencing him.

“They… know?” Stewart was surprised. “But, the rest of our money-”

“It’s been taken care of… no thanks to you!”

She continued. “Can we ask for your protection in exchange for some money?”

“I’m not getting paid if Hector’s not getting paid,” Mallory said. “Done deal.”

“Mallory-”

“Nope.” Mallory shook his head. “It’s not happening.”

“I’m heading east anyways,” Mercy said. “So, there’s nothing to give me money for.”

“Your protection,” Helia said.

“I have to protect myself,” Mercy continued. “If you’re around me when that happens… I’m not responsible.”

“Responsible for... “ Stewart put his finger on his chin. “...Ohh… you’re saying you’ll protect us.”

“You guys are so freggin’ cheesy,” Tallow said. “I think I should get paid.”

“Fine by me,” Hector said before either Helia or Stewart could respond.

“...But since it’s Hector’s fault you’re following us,” Tallow continued, “it suits me that he pays for my services.”

“Fine by me,” Hector repeated without much change in his tone.

All of the eyes then rested on Jon.

“...I’m just taking Mercy home,” Jon said. That was it.

“Anything you would have paid us, just make sure you pay Genevieve,” Hector told the two. “She’s the one risking her neck for all of you. And she’ll be the one finishing the job.”

“Of course, of course,” Stewart nodded. “We shall. We shall indeed.”

“And what of the proper channels? Helia asked Hector.

“The proper channels are clogged right now,” Hector muttered. “Nothing would have gone through anyways.”

Helia raised her hand and put it on his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she said. “Your generosity-”

“I”m not generous,” Hector said. “The fee covers anything that you would have needed during the trip. Food and stay included. I didn’t bring extra because-”

“You didn’t bring extra?” Mallory raised his eyebrow. “You always bring extra.”

“We can account for ourselves,” Helia said. “Thank you.”

“Can we put the damn carpet down!” Tallow said. “I’m gonna have to start tying up my other arm!”

“Give me…” Hector came by and lifted Tallow’s roll of carpet material off of her shoulder and put it on his.

He reached over and grabbed Jon’s carpet from his shoulder as well.

“Carriage is in the back,” Hector muttered as he walked towards the edge of the building.

“I could have done that…” Tallow said as she watched Hector walk away. “Show off…”

Once Hector came back, everyone entered the inn.

“Okay,” Hector said, turning back to everyone. “I had to split everyone into three rooms for there to be enough beds for everyone. I could have had everyone sleep in one room… but Mallory assured me that I should try to be fair to everyone.”

“I don’t mind sleeping on the floor,” Tallow said.

“Me neither,” Mercy added.

“Well, it’s too late!” Hector said, getting flustered. “Just choose a room. Actually…”

He gestured to Stewart and Helia.

“You two can sleep together,” Hector said. “I was too harsh on you the night before. Mallory assured me that you may want to-”

“Oh, hah!” Helia waved the comment away. “Sleep with him? Ha! He’s been annoying me this whole trip! Keep us separated!”

“That’s not fair!” Stewart exclaimed. “I was trying to protect us!”

“I went along with your plan for long enough!” Helia exclaimed. “And we don’t have to pretend to be married anymore.”

“Married?” Stewart scoffed. “Engaged. Marriage would have been too obvious! I made out story exactly-”

“You’re sleeping in separate rooms!” Hector yelled, silencing them both. “Please!”

Helia crossed her arms and made a celebratory grunt.

Stewart sighed.

“I don’t know what’s happened since before,” Hector began, “just, don’t make it hard to do our jobs.”

He looked at the others.

“Because of the attack, I’m gonna stay on the lookout,” Hector said. “Would you guys be willing to take shifts with me?”

“Of course,” Tallow said. “Why would you even ask?”

“...Because I wanted to be polite.”

“...Right…” Tallow raised an eyebrow at Mercy, who shrugged.

“I forgot we’re still in post-traumatic-Hector recovery period,” Tallow said.

“What does that mean?” Hector asked, but Tallow had already ignored him, walking upstairs and out of view.

“I think it’s nice that you’re trying new things,” Mercy said to him.

“This isn’t new” Hector exclaimed. “I’m just being nice!”

Mercy had already walked upstairs after Tallow.

“Why does it always feel like everyone’s talking circles around me?” Hector asked, taking a seat at the table.

Jon understood the feeling. He nodded, grateful he had someone to share the pain with.