Ramona sat in the airport's cafeteria, wolfing down six French toast, eight sausages, ten stripes of bacon, two waffles, two bananas, an apple, and an entire plate of scrambled eggs.

"Hey," Julius said as he sat down.

He had a bowl of cereal and two croissants.

"Eating for six, I see," Julius noted.

"Screw you, dude. I'm starving," Ramona shot back as she bit into her apple.

"Tell me this, why is it before all of this stuff? I was barely hungry, and everything tasted like oatmeal, and now it's like I'm starving, and everything is just so good!!" she moaned.

"It's all the mana running through your body. Super strength, magic, enhanced healing it all takes energy, and it has to come from somewhere. You get yours from food; I get mine from … somewhere else."

"You keep doing that. You start to talk about yourself, and then you just stop."

Julius gave her a smile.

"Privilege of age," Julius said. "Anyways, onto the more interesting news. Dick was able to grab some corpses as evidence. The entire BPA is freakin out about a possible invasion, Baker's claiming the whole thing is fake, and Daphne is trying to organize… something. And the rest of the board members are fapping about doing god knows what."

"Well, that's depressing," Ramona commented. "Anything else going wrong."

"We got the crazy guy from the cabin to a mental hospital. Saved almost thirty people from being mind slaves of the Alnune, and we stopped a potential alien invasion. Never forget the good you do because everyone else will."

"Alright," Ramona nodded.

Julius stuffed his mouth full of food as the silence dragged on.

"Big question time," Julius said as he cleared his throat. "Up until now, it's been go go go. But now you've seen some of the good, the bad, and some of the very bad. So now we have two options, first option: you can quit If you want to out. This is your last real chance to walk away. Go to school, date someone, get a mortgage, Have a semi-normal life."

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Ramona thought for a long moment considering Julius's words.

"And the other option?" Ramona asked.

Julius pulled out a badge with the words BPA embossed on it and slid it over to her.

"You can join the BPA. Properly this time, lots of training. You get to travel the world and get paid a butt ton of money, save the world. The downside; you might die on the job."

"Would you do it? Just quit and try to live a normal life." Ramona asked.

Julius gave her a cheeky smile.

"Never. I love this job. It's not safe at all. But It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid."

Ramona shot him a smile.

"You son of a bitch, I'm in," Ramona said.

Julius's face fell. "Did you just make a heist movie reference? I'm sorry, but I'm thinking less of you now."

"So then, partner. Where to next?" she asked, excitement and hope for the future blooming in her heart.

"Training, training, and more training," Julius stated. "We're going to need every edge for what happens next."

Ramona felt her dreams of adventure and glory going right down the drain. Then she remembered something, something that might get her out of training.

"That reminds me, I grabbed these for you back when we were in the Alnune fort." she pulled out a handful of elder tears and placed them on the table. The green pieces of whatever they were made out of glowed a disconcerting green.

Julius's mouth dropped, and he picked up an elder tear with almost reverence.

"Elder tears, one of the rarest magical catalysts known to man and one of the most dangerous. Ramona, I think you're my favourite person right now."

"Does that mean" Ramona began.

"You still need to do the training."

Ramona let out a sign as Julius examined the elder tears like a kid in a candy shop. She reflected on her life on how far it had gone off the deep end. Aliens, Vampires, The BPA, Puck. The world had gone mad. She smiled at that thought. If the world had truly gone mad, she might as well enjoy the madness.

🜁🜂🜃🜄🜅🜆🜇

Puck walked out of his latest transaction with a briefcase full of cash and a lighter, a collection of magical potions. He imagined that a bunch of mundane humans high on magic would be extremely entertaining. His grin was plastered on his face as he imagined the chaos that was about to unfold. It would be delicious.