George dangled over the railing, half his body spilling forward.
Behind him stood a girl no taller than his shoulder. A white long sleeve clung to her small frame, a cape brushing the floor behind her. An eyepatch cut across one hazel eye. In her hands, though utterly out of place, rested a shotgun. Its muzzle pressed to George's skull.
"Is that enough?" she screamed down, "I feel like that's enough."
"Yeah, that's enough." Hara kept walking forward. "Thank you, Vivi. I knew bringing you along was the right call."
"Should I kill him?" The gun dug deeper into George's head.
"No. The man owns too many buildings within the city. Killing him now would just drown us in paperwork."
"Ugh, paperwork." Vivi said, then in one lazy movement, she shoved George backward, letting him crash into the tables.
Then, just as he fell, she leapt from the upper deck and landed on the floor with both feet planted, hand still on the trigger of her weapon.
"I didn't think Traver would talk," Tello muttered.
"Hm?" Hara cocked his head, then turned his gaze toward George. "Don't tell me you actually thought he wouldn't break?"
He let out a dry laugh, almost smacking his knee.
"Look, the man's got no kids, no wife, no friends worth mentioning. I get it, you figured he'd be hard to crack. But money? Money's his heart, his lungs, his everything. We literally just had to tell him that the king would seize his assets, and well, you know the rest."
"What's your end goal?" Stephen asked, Hara now directly in front of him. Standing just a bit taller. "You want to reclaim the funds I conned? That's fine. Cass—"
"Reclaim?" Hara cut him off, tapping a finger against his chin as though weighing the idea. "I guess I could give the nobles their coin back, toss you two in prison for ten years, and probably let you out early for good behavior... yeah, that sounds good!"
Stephen didn't say anything, he could hear the sarcasm in his voice.
"But let's not kid ourselves." Hara leaned closer, voice almost a whisper. "It's far too late for that. You poked the wrong beast. Challenging Verre? in this economy? That's definitely a decision that was made."
"The nobles wanted to do so as well," Stephen said. "Why aren't they being punished too?"
"Well, there's no proof of that, you see." Hara said, "Even if you'd never conned them and the building still got made... their names were never on the fine print."
Hara walked back, giving them space.
"You were always going to take the heat, one way or the other." He shrugged, almost pitying. "I mean, what else do you expect when you run into fire?"
Then, just as he backed away. Hara's hand stretched out, the tip of his index making contact with Stephen's mask, the plastic cover turning to dust in an instant.
Just as quick. Stephen dashed back, only to be met with the cold mouth of a shotgun kissing the back of his head.
"No sudden movements, prince." Vivi said, then pushed him forward. "I wouldn't want my finger to slip."
"Still, Verre?" Hara shook his head as he strolled past Tello, Gila, and Cass, his fingertips brushing each of their masks, disintegrating them one by one. "Do you know what that woman is capable of?"
"Being scared of someone else isn't really my thing." Stephen shot Vivi a glance over his shoulder.
"Is that so?" Hara tilted his head. "Well... perhaps true. A prince has no reason to fear his subjects."
He hopped onto the receptionist's desk, legs swinging lazily.
"I doubt your friends are royalty, though," he added, and just as the words left his mouth.
The door crashed inward, ripped from its hinges and hurled straight toward Vivi. She didn't so much as flinch, and at the last moment the wooden slab bent mid flight, smashing into the wall just beside her.
And from the entrance.
A surge of mana poured in, as thick as smoke, rolling into the room like a living cloud.
The pressure hit like a wall, flooring each one of them, even Stephen, who tried to keep his composure, couldn't stop the tremor in his hands nor the clatter of his teeth.
First through the doorway was a woman in grey, with twin dark buns framing her head, Stephen recognized her at once. Behind her loomed another woman, standing taller than the frame itself, with a styled pixie cut and tattoos that crawled down her neck to her arms like chains.
"Stephen Eldoria!" Lyna's voice cracked across the room, her glare burning into him.
"Who are you again?" Stephen blurted out.
Lyna's fist twitched upward, every part of her body wanting to punch Stephen straight across the chin. but she froze mid stride as she remembered her mistress stood just behind.
"You ruined me," she hissed instead. "The trust my lady placed in me. I lost it all because of you!"
Stephen said nothing. His eyes slid past her, locking onto the figure who followed in silence.
The mana that choked the room was coming from her, and while he was pretending to be able to control his nerves. His legs screamed at him to run the other way.
Then, finally, she broke their gaze and turned to Hara.
"Oh, yes." Hara hopped down from the desk. "The King gave us orders, and a message for you."
"What is it?" She asked.
"Everyone in this building can be killed at your discretion... all except the Prince." Hara finished.
"After all the money I paid him to sanction this attack," she shook her head, "perhaps this is better than nothing."
Stephen's eyes darted around, his heart skipping every second beat. This was bad... worse than bad, and his body made sure he knew it. His chest tightened, throat dryer than any desert.
He needed to get out of here, but Vivi had him pinned, and Lyna and Hara blocked the only exit.
But even if he broke free... how could he drag Tello and Gila out with him?
"Third Prince of Eldoria," the woman said, stepping close enough for Stephen to catch the sharp sweetness of her perfume. "It's been a long time coming, but we finally meet. I am Rosemary Verona Arbartum, but everyone calls me Verre."
"Is that so? I would've gone with Arbart personally," Stephen muttered. Now wasn't the best time for snarky remarks, but nerves had him clinging to it.
"Do you know the story of how the Love Supreme came to be?"
Stephen probably did, it was definitely somewhere in the piles of lore he'd skimmed. But right now, his mind was blank.
Verre didn't wait for an answer. "I was orphaned pretty early in my life, the only other relative I had at the time was my uncle. Now, do you know what he did the second I entered his care?"
Stephen stayed silent.
"He sold me to the streets." She laughed bitterly. "A thirteen-year-old girl, forced to sell her body just to eat."
Her mana flared, heavy and oppressive, forcing them all down to one knee as she advanced.
"I survived day by day. Abuse stacked on abuse, until I finally scraped together enough coin to start something of my own. And, ironically. It was a brothel." She laughed again, striding toward the reception desk.
Cass shrank back until her spine hit the wall.
"Bring me all the money you made today," Verre ordered.
Cass stood frozen, her body unable to move. Noticing this, Verre's veil of mana slipped away, and in that instant Cass dove beneath the desk. She came back clutching a bag, arms trembling as she held it out.
"Good girl." Verre's hand rested on her shoulder, her veil of mana sweeping back over the room. "I like it when girls do as they're told."
"She has a crazy amount of mana." Gila whispered, and Stephen glanced at her. Mana covering her body like a layer of armor. "Now I see why people fear her so much."
"Wait... how are you moving?" Stephen whispered back, straining to lift his head. "Isn't her mana affecting you?"
"She's using mana in its raw form, using the sheer amount she has to overwhelm us. If you use your mana like a protective layer around you." She said. "You can counteract the pressure."
Stephen glanced at his palm, even though he knew exactly how to channel his mana, and could probably wrap it around himself. Doing so under these circumstances was almost impossible.
"So, I gathered all the girls around. The ones that had been abused, discarded and sold off, and I gave them work." Verre said. "I gave them a way to take pleasure from the very thing that ruined them... I gave them salvation."
"You're not making much sense," Stephen muttered, trying to build mana in his palm.
"I aren't, am I?" Verre burst out laughing. "I have this habit of trying to mask my greed with a sob story. In truth, you hurt my position in this city."
She yanked Cass into the center of the room so everyone could see.
"And worse... you hurt my pockets." She said. "You gave this city something I couldn't, and made more profit than I could in a week."
Pulling Cass closer, Verre held her gaze.
"And then, my friends kept asking: what will you do? How will you strike back against the upstarts taking your place? How would you handle them disrespecting your status?"
With sudden intimacy, she pressed her lips to Cass's, lingering as strands of saliva dripped down her chin to her chest.
When she pulled away, Cass's eyes had turned a dull grey. Almost like an empty shell void of anything.
"And I came to one conclusion... one answer only. I have to kill you."
"Seems like you skipped a lot of other conclusions you could've gotten, no?" Stephen muttered, struggling to keep himself from falling flat.
"You know, Lyna said you were immune to the effects of our aphrodisiacs, and I wondered how." She said, walking closer to him. "And it is fascinating to be honest, I've never met a man quite able to do so."
"Or maybe you aren't as attractive as you thought," Stephen shot back, "Ever consider that?"
Lyna darted past Verre and drove her fist into Stephen's chest. The blow slammed him to the floor with a thud, his arms clutching at his gut.
"Still, I wonder. Are your friends immune as well?" Verre said with a smile before glancing to her side.
Cass caught the glance Verre gave her, and just in the middle of them. Her hands came to her throat, and with a smile she choked herself until she couldn't breathe. Until she collapsed to the ground, eyes rolling in the back of her head.
Until she died.
"If only you'd chosen a different path, I would've been able to save you." Verre said, looking at her collapsed body. "What a pitiful thing."
The entire room paused, fear etched against their faces and while some bounced back faster than others. Stephen stared at the body still, his heart thudding so hard it probably echoed through the room.
He couldn't even begin to think about what was going on, his eyes just stayed on the body. Thinking about how she was just alive a moment ago... about how he'd just gotten her killed.
Then his mind instantly rerouted, he needed to prioritize survival now. But he could only inhale like he was having a panic attack, his thoughts unable to form.
"Mixing an aphrodisiac with your saliva, so you can control anyone you kiss," Vivi muttered, her voice laced with disgust. "You're a sick person."
"Getting disrespected can make anyone feel ill, no?" Verre replied lightly, her gaze leaving Cass's corpse. "Now, I doubt she was important to you. So let's move on, hm?"
She passed Stephen without another glance, stopping just before Tello.
"No..." The word slipped from Stephen's lips before he realized he'd spoken.
"Hm?" Verre tilted her head, eyes falling to the boy kneeling on the floor, chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. "This one?"
She crouched, perfume curling through the air, rich and suffocating. Vivi shook her head and turned aside, not wanting to see the rest of this.
"Such a cute little thing." She grabbed Tello's face. Watching him struggle to squirm under the pressure of her mana. "So beautiful... yet so misguided."
"Leave him alone!" Gila dashed through the room, in her fist a concentrated ball of mana, but just as she threw the punch.
The sound of shotgun fire came through the air, blood splashing across the room like paint whipped on a canvas.
"Gila..." Tello muttered, as a warm liquid streamed down his neck, then a thud by his feet.
"Do you think you're enacting mercy by killing her before I can?" Verre glanced at Vivi, who retracted her shotgun.
"And what if I do?" She questioned.
Verre smiled. "I'll simply kill this one more brutally."
"Bitch." Vivi spat.
And while all this went on, as gunfire streamed through the room and Tello stood pinned, struggling against Verre's grip, about to be twisted into another puppet.
Stephen could only sit and watch, unable to form a coherent thought, unable to channel his mana.
This situation was just too much, just too soon.
How should he have even prepared for this?
What should he have done?
Stephen stood paralyzed, and Verre leaned in, pressing her lips against Tello's. Saliva mixing in with his before pulling away.
As her lips left his, Tello rose like a puppet tugged by invisible strings. He drifted toward Vivi, grabbing her shotgun by the barrel and placing the muzzle to his forehead.
And then, with his other hand.
He pulled the trigger.