As Saber waited for an opponent to reveal themself, one of the strangers in the house took off and ran, and he waved along two of his teammates. They managed to leave the perimeter without obstruction or harm.

Was this confirmation enough for them, finally, that the whole "Special Challenge" had been nothing more than a farce? That they could leave alive without taking down Saber?

And as they fled, others scurried away as well, perhaps to safer shelters.

Only six remained: Hal, Jack, me, the owner of the house, the rapier-woman that attacked Saber, and Saber herself.

I pointed my railgun's bore at the woman with the rapier.

"You're not going anywhere," I told her.

I didn't know if she had just been brash in her efforts of self-preservation, or if something more sinister was at play. For all I knew, she could've set this whole incident up, acted the part of a LCS victim, and tried to use the lie of a "Special Challenge" to get away with attacking Saber without repercussions.

The homeowner, too, brandished throwing needles from the folds of her clothes.

"That'll be $200,000 for repairs," she threatened.

"Rapier-gal might be a LCS plant," I mentioned to the homeowner. "What now? Do we capture her?"

"Our prisons in the supermarket are compromised," Hal sighed. "We've got an empty mall sighted farther out. It'll be a couple days' travel, but that's our backup base. I've never seen her around the LCS before, so take caution." He pointed at the rapier-gal with his druidic staff.

The rapier lady remained silent.

The fortress of light around Saber faded. And with it, the spikes of ice jutting from her chest melted and crumbled. From here, I could tell the holes they had punctured through her chest plate. But her bleeding had already been stymied. I checked her HP. Thankfully, she had only lost a third of it, from both the rapier thrust itself, and the internal ice-spikes combined. Relief washed over me. But it was not the end of my anger.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Give me a reason to keep you alive," I snarled at the rapier wielder. Then I turned to Hal and Jack. "She's a liability no matter how you cut it. Either she's an undercover Bounty Hall Agent, or she's reckless enough to get us killed."

"Pop her head off," the homeowner spat. "I'll take her loot. You, you'll take revenge for your friend over there."

I almost liked that idea, despite knowing that we'd potentially be killing someone who had only attacked out of self-preservation, because she had been duped by some third party. I wondered if desperation had already chipped away at my better judgment.

Actually, you know what?

I jogged across the street to get to Saber. Seeing me, she lowered her sword.

"Oh my gosh," I said, finally loosening my guard a little. But not too much. The enemy could still be near. "Saber, does it hurt?"

She finger-flicked me on the forehead. Owie.

"You think?" she scoffed. "Felt like my internal organs just got put in a blender."

"Oh man." I shuddered. "You're certainly hiding the pain pretty well. Big battlecries, sword stance, you know."

She put a hand to her waist. Now, listening to her breathing, I could identify her shallow, struggling breaths.

"I try my best," she said.

"Wait," I told her. "I just gotta make sure."

I shifted my grip on my railgun to press the metal-scanner ability. Sure enough, flashes of cobalt light danced all around me, indicating the presence of metal. The lights streaked behind me, in the shape of the woman's rapier. They lit up under the ground, in the shape of pipes. They were in the walls of the buildings. The cobalt lights, of course, covered all of Saber's equipment.

And the lights manifested in the shape of a massive sword, floating in the air right behind her. One I didn't see with my naked eye.

I fired my Frost Missile at it, without a second thought. As the projectile left the barrel of my gun, the sword swung. It cleaved my missile in half.

Shapes and colors emerged around the sword, from out of empty air, like ink soaking through paper. The outline of a man manifested, then more and more of his body.

Had he posted the Special Challenge notice, while invisible? Had he been the one to conjure the frozen rink? He didn't look anything like James.

He had spiky blonde hair, and wore no armor – only a black, sleeveless knit top, and black baggy pants. In his hand was the biggest, most ridiculously oversized sword I had ever seen.

I conjured a Cold Grenade in the barrel of my railgun. "...You're behind all of this, aren't you?"

"Stay out of it, kiddo," he said. "This is between me, and this bounty right here." He tilted his head in Saber's direction.

Crap. So James really went ahead and posted Saber's bounty after all.

I launched the Cold Grenade and encased him in ice, right then and there.

Time to beat his Cloud Strife-ass into the ground.