Chapter Seventeen.

"Curse it all!" Roger slammed his fist into the table. "Five places! Five different fronts those brats destroyed since they started yesterday! Five! What the hell do they want?"

The two men standing by the door gave him nervous looks. Their heavyset boss was in one of his moods, and it was best to not say anything that could provoke him, just wait it out. Not unless he directly asked them a question.

Then, it was a fifty-fifty chance on whether or not they'd survive after answering.

"Two brats!" He exclaimed. "Two brats are destroying our business!"

He swiped his hand across his desk, throwing papers, books, and a penholder across the room. Roger had barely received word about the tea shop that morning when the pair of teens struck their second target, a sweets shop. It wasn't until the third, a beauty parlor, that they managed to get a look at the teens.

Two of them. Two of them. A boy and a girl, both around fifteen. The boy could teleport, while the girl wielded flames. It was only because of a contractor-type mage that they found that out – the teens were somehow cloaking the fronts with a powerful barrier, preventing anyone from entering or observing what was happening.

The contractor had a bond with a cat that was in the beauty parlor, though she was at home. The girl killed the cat with her fire as the boy teleported and shot bullets. Then, they burned the parlor to the ground, just like their previous two targets.

The barrier concerned Roger, and he slammed his fist into the table again. There was clearly a third mage working with them, someone powerful enough to construct such a barrier, but unless they only showed up after the cat was killed, then they remained a noncombatant. They were there purely for the barrier.

Why did they kill the cat? Where those kids truly heartless? The only other reason the smuggler could think of for killing the cat would be if they knew she was bound to a nature mage, but that wasn't possible – only a handful of people knew about the nature mage having contractor abilities.

"You two!" Roger snarled at the guards. "Go out and fetch me the other heads! We need to have a meeting to discuss what to do! If these brats don't let up, we'll go bankrupt!"

The men nodded and left, glad to be out of his immediate area, and Roger stomped around his office, muttering to himself. If he strengthened the number of guards at a few of the fronts, just for a few days, they'd likely be able to stop the kids. The question was how many guards, how many fronts, and how to determine where to put them?

Okay, questions.

"What do those kids want?"

"We wanted your location."

Roger spun to face the teens who'd been reported to be there. They were accompanied by a third figure this time. This figure was a little bit shorter than the others, and was dressed in a black cloak that completely concealed his body, the hood pulled up and face partially-hidden by the deep cowl. What little of the face he could see was hidden by a mask.

Not a bit of skin showed, and just looking at the little figure made his skin crawl. A pressure set in on Roger, suffocating his mind ever-so-slightly.

"Found you," the teen boy said. "Roger Verdaris. Enchant-type mage who specializes in enhancing his physical defense and his physical strength. You're actually rather minor – you can't do any spells other than those two, and you can't make yourself all that powerful. You're a magical goods smuggler who deals in black market things using mundane businesses as fronts."

"However," the girl said. "You have information we want. Information we need. And so we hunted your men until we got it. Give it to us, and we'll stop attacking your businesses."

"There are more than a hundred mages here," Roger told her as he increased his physical durability. "More than a hundred combat mages."

"Only a hundred?" She laughed. "Hey, Eden, what do you think the odds are of us against them?"

"Five minutes?" The teen, Eden, looked at her. "Maybe six? That depends. If he decided to involve himself, we could probably win in under a minute. But that's not why we're here."

"No," the girl said, then returned her gaze to Roger. "We're here because we know that you have access to an underground slave arena. What we want, specifically, is for our friend here," she put a hand on the cloaked figure's shoulder. "To get in. Not to fight, to watch. And you have a pass to the arena. Are you able to take guests with you?"

"What do you children want with the arena?" Roger asked.

"Answer the question," Eden pointed a gun at Roger, who laughed. "You think you can stop these bullets? They're made of magilar, a magic-piercing metal. Forged by dwarfs. Specifically, the Tulmit Clan. Your body's enhancements are worthless against these bullets. You'll need to go a lot higher than twenty percent of your maximum enhancement to stop them. You can only triple your resistance, so that's not that big of a difference. Not to these bullets."

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Roger froze. The kid knew he'd raised his defenses, even though he looked no different than before. He quickly raised them up to eighty percent of what he could manage.

"Eighty percent?" Eden laughed, looking at Jenna. "Seriously? These are Tulmit-forged bullets! They're enchanted heavily and made of a magic-piercing metal! Does he seriously think he could stop them! He's not a powerful enough mage for that! I don't even know how he managed to get a pass into the arena."

"You are making a very big mistake," Roger told him. "I-"

"No," Jenna said. "We didn't make a mistake, Roger. Now. Our friend wants to watch the fights for a few days. You will take him with you. And you will not hurt him, and nor will you attempt to enslave or trap him. Doing so will not end well for you."

"Despite how powerful we are," Eden said. "It would take him less than a second to kill you. In fact, he could kill everyone in this building before a single one of them could manage to hit him with a spell."

Roger stared at the shorter figure. The boy had referenced dwarfs. Purchasing dwarf-made weapons was difficult on Earth, as one needed to know a spatial mage who could open a gate to another world in order to purchase dwarf-made goods. And there were only three spatial mages on Earth who could do such a thing, as far as he knew.

Even then, they were using enchantments made with their spatial magic, not opening the gates directly with their own power.

The shorter figure was the right height for a dwarf, though they seemed a bit skinnier than the smuggler had heard dwarfs were. Perhaps they were a runt? Or one on a diet?

Dwarfs were notorious for specializing in the enchant school. To a dwarf, you weren't a dwarf if your roots weren't in the enchant school. It didn't matter what their actual roots were, dwarfs claimed their roots were enchant magic.

Hardy, tough, and powerful. Piercing the skin of a dwarf was a lot more difficult than piercing the mithril armor they made.

As Roger thought that, everything made sense. This was likely an outcast among the dwarfs, and he'd traded the bullets to Eden as payment for finding a way into the arena, to watch it. Why? Roger didn't care.

The dwarf was the mage who created the barrier during their attacks.

"And if I refuse?" Roger asked, his focus on the dwarf.

"We put a bullet in your chest," Eden answered. "Burn down this building, and move on to the next person we know has a pass into the arena and convince them to take our friend along."

Roger snorted. There wasn't a chance they knew anyone else. At least, not nearby. Only Frank Smoln and John Kals lived in the area from the others he knew, and while he didn't know how the teens found out about him, odds of them finding out about those two were even slimmer.

"And if you don't believe us," Jenna said. "Frank Smoln and John Kals. In that order. Frank has a casino just a few blocks from here, doesn't he? I wonder what DoSS would think if it burned down after you died and your base was incinerated."

"You have men coming," Eden said. "When they enter, order them to back off."

Roger was confused for a moment, before remembering his past orders to bring the heads of his organization to him. Some of them must have shown up.

"If I accept, what happens?" He asked.

"Then we stop attacking your organization," Jenna answered. "And you take our friend here to the arena each night until he's satisfied. Then, we'll pay you with the heart of a Fairy Lord. I'm sure you'll appreciate our compensation."

Roger's eyes widened at the thought of a Fairy Lord's heart, his thoughts returning to the auction a month prior. There was the heart of a Fairy Lord sold there. They were extremely valuable in the magical world, and with most known fairies and Fairy Lords slain, their prices had skyrocketed across the universe.

Just accepting it would make up for the losses they'd delivered unto him, and then pay for more.

It was too good of a deal to pass up if they genuinely had a Fairy Lord's heart. The teens stop attacking and he'd earn millions. The kids were clearly talented. They'd managed to enter his office without detection, and they'd already killed six combat mages with apparent ease.

The door to his office opened, and the woman and two men who entered froze, staring at the three figures facing Roger.

"We have a deal," Roger told the trio, glancing at the newcomers for only a moment. "I want some sort of proof up front that you'll deliver on your promise."

Eden vanished, and Roger's eyes widened. There was a spatial block on the building, which meant that the teen shouldn't have been able to teleport. A few moments passed, and Eden reappeared, holding an enchanted box in his hands along with a paper.

"This is a magical contract," Eden held the paper to Roger. "Place a drop of blood on it to complete it. Once it's accepted, then if either of us break it, then we die. Only the violator. It binds me into giving you the heart of the Fairy Lord, if you follow through with your end of the deal. It also binds me into no longer attacking your organization. As you'll note, Jenna here is bound into the contract as well."

"And your friend?"

"He didn't like the idea of being bound into a contract," Eden opened up the box, revealing a heart within it. "Contained within a stasis spell so long as the box is closed, we have the heart of Fairy Lord Abiira. She used to work with the Thorntons, up until she found herself slain in the Battle of the Fae Forest."

Roger examined the heart, confirming it to be a fairy's heart based on a few subtle differences between theirs and a human's, then he lowered his physical resistance and pricked his finger, allowing a drop of blood to appear in the paper, which vanished.

"And the contract is sealed," Eden closed the box, tucking it under one arm. "Without further business here, we'll be off. Treat our friend right, or he may just show you why he's the scariest motherfucker around."

Eden placed a hand on Jenna, held up two fingers in a V to Roger, then the pair of teens vanished, leaving their companion behind.

"I found out who had been attacking our fronts," Roger informed his agents. "We'll be having a guest for a few days. Do you have a name?"

The figure stared at him in response.

"Something to call you?"

The figure continued to stare.

"Anything?"

The figure stared some more.

"Colton, prepare a room for our guest," Roger looked at the three heads who'd entered during the discussion. "An actual room, not a special one. Once the other heads get here, I need you to consolidate our front businesses. Less locations, more guards. Those two teens were the assailants, and they've promised not to attack anymore in exchange for a favor and a Fairy Lord's heart. Meet in one of the conference rooms, and don't allow anyone to enter my office for the next five hours."