This was going to be a difficult problem.

“The redhead wasn’t part of the deal!” Ash snarled, calling on the mana from her core to bear and the ambient mana around her reacted to it.

If the man in front of her was bothered by it, he didn’t show it.

“Not a part of your deal,” he said. “But he was part of a deal.”

“Abed,” Ash realized, holding her composure. “Well, you’ll have to get through me to get to him.”

“As cute as that sounds,” the man said, “who said I was the one that had to get to him?”

Dread filled Ash and she summoned a spellform of water. The mana shifted and warped as it changed form, pulling itself into a wave of water she blasted at the man with the force of a geyser.

The blast hit the man and Ash was already casting an ice spell on it, freezing the wave so that it held the man in ice, trapped from the chest down.

“You Beta mages, these days,” the man scoffed, unbothered. “So disrespectful.”

Ash was already casting a new spellform when the man forced his way out of the ice. He moved with a grunt and a groan and Ash’s spellform was just reaching its conclusion when the ice holding him shattered.

Ash brought her new spellform to its conclusion quickly, knowing she’d clipped some of the incantations short in a hurry. While the spell would not hold the full force of what she could bring to bear, it held more than enough for its task.

A ball of fire gathered above Ash and she sent it after the man.

The man’s response was simple and mildly terrifying. He raised a casual hand and swiped it to the side as if trying to drive off a fly. A gust of wind reacted to him, sweeping out in an arc that extinguished the flame.

It dawned on Ash that she might’ve made a very huge mistake. She’d been working under the false assumption that Beta mages were the only mages willing to do business with other Beta mages. Most mages of higher ranks felt it was beneath them to engage in any form of equal exchange with lower ranked mages. That was why she’d thought the VHF platoon would’ve sent a Beta rank mage to accept her request.

But she had been severely wrong, and she fought back her fear as her contact stood before her ready to call upon a fraction of the power of the Rukh rank mage that he was.

Then a large boom shook the air.

The sound was too far to make out properly, but the sudden wave of light that filled the sky, rising up in defiance of the dark told Ash all she needed to know. She recognized an explosion when she heard one. It sufficed to halt her.

The others were in trouble.

……………………………………………

Zed lowered the box that held the duster coat so that it rested between him and Abed. Standing in front of the man was like standing in from of a fire on a chilly night. It wasn’t a furnace but his aura was definitely there.

Abed was a Rukh rank mage, and the fact that he could feel it so clearly meant there were either levels even to category two Rukhs or the man was purposely flaring it.

“You must be Abed,” Zed said with a wide smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Abed’s attention on him was odd, to say the least. The man looked at him as if he hated him but was happy to see him.

“From Jason’s team, I take it,” Abed said, returning Zed’s smile with one of his own.

Zed saw the smile and almost laughed. As much as Abed tried, he couldn’t bring it to reach his eyes. It was the most political smile he could ever think of, the kind opponents in opposing parties would give each other.

Must be hard faking a believable smile, Zed thought as he noted the girl standing beside Abed.

She looked familiar but he couldn’t place her, young, maybe fifteen. Sixteen at most. Short, too.

“Have we met before?” he asked her.

“Unlikely,” Abed said, moving her behind him with a small tug on her hand.

“You sure?” Zed asked, rubbing his chin with his free hand. “I could’ve sworn I know that face.”

“You don’t,” Abed said, now adamant. “She just has one of those faces, she gets that a lot.”

Zed had more to say but Ronda beat him to it.

“Are you sure you’re not a flirt, Ned?” she asked.

“Scouts honor,” Zed replied, raising a solemn hand. “Anyway. I was told I took something important to someone. As grand as this party is,” he gestured around for emphasis, “I think it’s a bit too much for me. So if you’ll just point me in the right direction I’ll just drop this off with its owner and be on my way.”

The girl beside Abed stared at Zed as he talked. There was a hopeful look in her eyes, the kind that had despair drawing at its heel, an ever threatening usurper. She wanted something from him and he was sure they’d met before. Even if he didn’t remember who she was, she clearly remembered him.

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

That alone pricked at him.

“Are you sure I couldn’t have ever met her before?” Zed asked Abed. “Because I swear—”

“Mr. Ned,” Abed bit out, “I assure you it is not the case. My girlfriend doesn’t go out often enough to have met you.”

“Oh.”

“Girlfriend,” Ronda mused, looking between Abed and the girl. “Doesn’t she look a bit too young for you?”

Zed’s lips pursed in surprise. He was a troublemaker at the best time but he knew enough to know what going too far looked like and what poking a bear was. One did not simply oppose the powerful in a world where exchanged blows could uproot trees.

He held his composure even as Abed’s lips pressed into a tight line.

“And you are?” Abed asked, turning to Ronda.

“Ronda,” she answered easily.

“A guest of?”

“You? I guess,” Ronda said with a shrug.

“I don’t remember inviting you.”

“No, but you invited the Tarantula.”

“And I know who killed her to get her invite in the end.”

Abed’s expression grew from suspicious to something dark as they talked, but his aura didn’t flinch. Zed didn’t know very much about auras but he knew emotions often affected it. So he was either so bad at sensing auras that he couldn’t note the changes in Abed’s or the man just had that much control over his aura. Whichever one it was, he was impressed.

If Ronda noticed Abed’s anger, however, she didn’t show it. For all it looked, she might as well have complimented Abed’s mother’s beauty.

“I suggest you leave,” Abed said finally. “Those without invites are not welcome here.”

“Well, not to interrupt,” Zed chipped in, “but when you say invite, do you mean, like, an actual invitation card? Because I didn’t get any.”

“Your invite, Mr. Ned, is in your hand,” Abed said without looking at him.

“Oh,” Zed raised the box. “Whoever owns this must really want it back.”

“Yes. And they don’t like uninvited guests.”

Zed slipped the box forward, filling the space between Abed and Ronda so that one end of it rested against Abed’s stomach. It was enough to get the man’s attention back and Abed looked at him.

“Your coat,” Zed said with an easy smile. “Sorry I took it. In my defense, I just found it lying around and thought no one would want it.”

The girl beside Abed reached around Abed to take the box, and despite the free parts of the box she could take it by, her fingers grazed Zed’s hand as she took it.

“Oh, darling,” Abed said to her, going from slightly menacing to love-struck too quickly to be considered normal. “There’s no need to stress yourself. Just put that down anywhere.”

“Certainly, Mr. Abed.”

Something about the girl’s voice picked at a memory in Zed’s head as she looked around, looking for a place to put it down.

Abed’s expression darkened slightly at the way she addressed him but he schooled it quickly enough.

Good at hiding his anger, Zed noted. But not at faking a smile.

“Darling,” Abed frowned. “Just put it anywhere. The coat’s not that important.”

“What kind of girlfriend calls her boyfriend mister?” Ronda asked, her expression dipping softly.

Zed turned to her this time.

The girl beside Abed spotted a table as Abed turned a scowl on Ronda and slipped out of his hold to drop the box on it.

“Ronda,” Zed said in a small whisper.

Whatever warning he was trying to convey was lost to her as she met Abed’s now glaring eyes, unflinching.

“Ronda, was it?” Abed said quietly, tightly.

“Yes, Mister Abed.”

“You seem more than unwilling to leave nicely.”

“Well,” Ronda gestured around, “the party doesn’t seem anywhere near over.”

Abed reddened visibly.

“Do you know what I hate more than people who don’t know how to mind their business?” he asked, the mana around him slowly coming alive.

“Enlighten me,” Ronda said, her aura slowly slipping free.

Zed reached out to touch it with his aura, curious. He felt her aura and immediately placed a hand on her shoulder.

“My deepest apologies, Mister Abed,” he said graciously. “My new friend isn’t from around here and doesn’t know much of what she’s saying. We’ll just be taking our leave now.”

With his arm still firm on her shoulder, Zed steered Ronda away from Abed. She stood defiant at first, unwilling to move, and Zed was beginning to think he might have to leave her when she turned with him.

Abed glared at her as they turned and left him, disappearing back into the crowd of mages.

“I didn’t take you for a coward,” Ronda told Zed as they moved through the crowd.

They had walked far enough that he believed she wouldn’t turn around when he released her shoulder, so he did.

“Not a coward,” he said. “Just a selective talker.”

“So you were fine with a forty-year-old calling a sixteen-year-old his girlfriend,” she spat.

“It’s not about comfort, love. It’s about knowing my place.”

Ronda paused to stare at him in shock.

“Your place?”

“I sense there was a misunderstanding in there,” Zed said. “What I meant was that you should look around. There are at least twelve girls like her walking about, playing a role we’re more than certain they shouldn’t be playing.”

For emphasis he gestured at a girl wearing skimpy clothes, sitting on a man’s lap with her arms around his neck. She looked no older than the girl Abed had been with.

Ronda scowled at the sight before turning back to him. “What’s your point, Ned?”

“My point,” Zed said, “is that we’re the guests here. To these people, it’s totally normal.”

“Normal doesn’t make it right,” she shot back.

Zed shrugged.

“True,” he agreed. “But you need power to make changes. If you don’t have that power, then when in Rome…”

He let his words trail off, certain he didn’t need to complete the sentence.

“You have no idea how much I hate that saying,” Ronda said, staring him down even though he was taller. “These days people use it to justify refusing to stand up to the wrong thing when they see it.”

“Alright,” Zed said. “Humor me, then. What were you going to do there? Save her?”

“For starters.”

“Then what? Save the others?”

Ronda frowned but said nothing.

“And what if they don’t want to be saved?” Zed asked. “You might not want to see it but I count two girls who are actually enjoying what they are doing.”

“Then they don’t need saving,” Ronda answered. “I’m not some comic book character living on absolute good. I believe only those that want to be saved deserve to be saved. I won’t force salvation on someone else. But you saw the look on her face; she wanted to be saved. A waste she was looking to you to do the saving.”

“Alright. So what were you going to do?” Zed pressed, ignoring the insult. “Get into a fight with Abed?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

Zed shook his head.

“I felt your aura, Ronda,” he said. “A Beta mage, even if category three, doesn’t just get in a fight with a Rukh. It’s not a fight they can win.”

“Maybe in your world it isn’t,” Ronda said, then turned around and made her way back to Abed.

Well I guess I was wrong about that part, Zed thought with a tired sigh.

As much as he wanted to stop her, he wasn’t sure he even could. If she decided he was another target for her anger, he wasn’t sure he would survive, seeing as fighting her would be the equivalent of fighting Ash. Ronda might be a Beta like him but she was still a category three.

“If you save one of them,” he called after her, “you’ll have to save all of them.”

“Wouldn’t be the first,” she called back without taking her eyes off Abed.

Abed’s attention caught on her approach and his expression changed. Zed couldn’t see Ronda’s expression but he was more than certain it was anything but friendly, and Abed was reacting to it appropriately.

Abed stalked forward, eyes livid with anger and hate when the roof exploded in a loud boom. The explosion blotted out all the sound in the room and a large piece of the roof fell through the distance. It landed on Abed and buried him into the ground.

Zed stared in shock, looking from the fallen roof to Ronda and back.

Well that’s one way to win a fight, he thought.

Another explosion boomed from a different part of the auditorium and more followed. Together they lit up the room, shaking it like an earthquake, and the building started to crumble around them.

It was time to get back to the others.