The setting sun caught the glass windows of the AG's newly developing headquarters. Alex and Olivia closed their doors, his a bit harder than necessary, and quickly entered the college-like campus after settling Valtherion onto his shoulders. The construction hadn't stopped since the podium event two weeks before — if anything, Alex felt like it had accelerated. There were new wings branching off from the main building. One was complete, and the other still had the skeleton frame of it being raised.

"They've added another section," Alex said.

Where's all this money coming from?

The question popped into his mind without thought. He'd never put his mind toward the Guild's spending or payments before this, but he had to assume that they made a massive amount of money on Mana Stones and other materials harvested from Rifts.

A group of younger Awakened passed by them as they stepped up the curb from the parking lot onto the brick walkway into the center of the campus. They were laughing, and two of them said hello as they left the HQ, likely off to enjoy their recent gains.

Alex clenched his jaw. Val tightened his grip around Alex's shoulders in response, and Alex noted that the mana wyrm had been unusually quiet since they left the house. Likely picking up on the tension of the situation.

"Let's go," Olivia said, leading them through the campus. "Elana's office got finished last week. So she should be there."

As they moved, a woman in a white winter jacket — marking her as another Peacekeeper — waved at Olivia. "Hey! Haven't seen you in a bit!"

Olivia managed a tight smile and a brief wave but kept walking. Alex noticed how her eyes kept darting down to her shadow on the ground, where he knew Nox was coiled up and recovering slowly.

The two automatic doors slid open with a hiss, and the inside was much warmer than the evening March air. There was a security desk inside the entryway, and a man sat behind it reading a stack of papers, his face lit up by a laptop. The guard straightened when he saw them.

"Olivia, it's good to see you. And Alex, it's been a while!"

"We're here to see Elana," Alex said. His voice came out harder than intended, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

The younger man frowned slightly before looking at Olivia. When she nodded, he shrugged and gestured down the hall. "Of course. She's in her office. Take the elevator to the third floor and take a right. You can't miss it."

Olivia was already moving, knowing where it was. Alex followed and felt his pulse begin to quicken once more. He played through the coming conversation in his head and tried to think of the many different possibilities.

Is Rylan going to be here?

Alex flexed his hand and knew that if the large warrior were present, he wouldn't wait to mince words or trade snide remarks. The only way it was going to feel satisfying, and like any amount of progress in this situation, would be if he got to hit Rylan. And then hit him a few more times for good measure.

Elana's new office occupied what felt like a quarter of the third floor. The outer room had a desk and space for what he assumed was her assistant, though it was late enough that the floor seemed mostly empty. The door to her inner office was partially open, and Alex reached it first.

He didn't knock and pushed the door wide. Stepping in quickly, he scanned the room, hoping to find a large, lounging warrior.

Elana sat behind a massive desk, its surface covered with several monitors. The wall behind her was a floor-to-ceiling window, and the setting sun painted everything in the same warm orange they'd seen as they walked up.

Not seeing Rylan, Alex let out a frustrated grunt. Part of him wanted to yell and hit something anyway, but he restrained himself and looked to Elana. The surprise on her face was clear, and she began to say something, but he cut her off. He asked the question that had been tugging at his mind nonstop.

"Did you know?" The words exploded from him, and he knew his volume was still too high and his mana was leaking a bit.

Elana flinched at the sudden entrance to the room, clearly caught off guard. “Know what?” She stood slowly and kept her hands flat on her desk. She looked quickly between Alex and Olivia. “Olivia, what’s going on? What’s happened?”

Alex felt his heart hammering and he wanted to yell, but his anger had caused problems for him before in the past. He used his Willpower to calm down on his emotions as he’d done once before, quenching the fire and leaving him to feel a bit hollow. His thoughts continued to race and his mind felt clear.

“The sun elves,” Alex said, though his voice sounded eerily calm now. “The ones working with your brother. The ones who just blew a hole in my house and stole my research.” He paused and punctuated each word. “Did. You. Know?”

Olivia stepped forward and grabbed his arm. She spoke up with a steady voice. “Elana, we need some answers. Now. Because if you knew about this…”

“Huh? Sun elves?” Elana’s face scrunched up and as she regained her wits, her surprise and fear turned into a defensive posture. “What are you talking about? What happened to your home?”

Alex reached into his spatial pouch and pulled out the piece of torn cloak before placing it deliberately on her desk. “Look familiar? It’s the same damn sun emblem that your brother’s been wearing since before New Year’s. Both of the elves that broke into my place had cloaks with that emblem on them. This is just part of the hem, but the logo was even larger on the center of the back.”

Elana picked up the square foot piece of cloth and looked at it. “This doesn’t mean—”

He leaned forward slightly. “They came in and only cared about stealing my magical notes. To be honest, if they had been trying to kill us, I don’t know that we would have won the fight. Their defensive magic was so strong that they ignored us the entire time. Do you know who knew about my magical work?” Alex stepped closer to the desk. “Rylan. Ian. Pete. That’s it outside of my own friends.

“But these weren’t humans, Elana. They were elves. Pointy ears and all. Suddenly, all those meetings and articles about Rylan having perfect information about the System make a lot more sense, don’t they? Remember when I asked you a few months ago, and you said you didn’t know either? Well, now we do.”

Elana lowered herself back into her seat. "You can't possibly think—"

"That your brother's been working with creatures from another world? Getting information from them and other bonuses like magic items and experience to level?" Alex laughed a cold laugh. "Of course I do. I got the same damn treatment. The only difference was I told you and the Guild about it and didn’t let them out of the god damned Rift. How else did he know so much about the integration? How else would he have been keeping up, and even passing me, in levels when I was in a Rift with eight times time-dilation? And most of all… How the hell did you not ask or find the answers to these questions?"

"Look, Rylan is a lot of things. I get it. But he wouldn't do something like this. It just doesn’t make sense. He would have absolutely told me…" Elana said, but Olivia stepped forward.

"I saw it myself, Elana. Their magic and barriers. The emblems and the ears. Alex even has a skill that allows him to get information on runes, and it confirmed that sun elves make the runes on your brother's magical items. This isn't some misunderstanding, and it's not Alex blowing anything out of proportion. This is serious."

Alex watched as something shifted on Elana's face. She set down the fabric and looked at it for a long moment before speaking up again. "Rylan has always…" She took a deep breath. "He's always done what he thought was best for himself, even when we were children. Whenever there was something to win or a way to be better, if he set his sights on it… He’d do anything to make it happen. But this… if what you’re saying is true…”

“It is,” Alex said flatly.

Elana nodded slowly. "I'll need to speak with the other Moderators immediately. Rylan will be suspended pending an investigation, and if this proves true…" She straightened, and Alex could see her shifting further from sister and more toward leader. "He'll be permanently banned from the Guild. We've invested too much, built too much, to let anyone—including my brother—compromise what's being created here."

He stared at her for several moments, his eyes searching her face for any sign of deceit. Shaking his head, he reached forward and took the cloth from her desk. He wanted to ask her if she thought that "banning him from the Guild" was actually going to do anything to stop what he was doing or right the wrongs that he'd done. Rylan deserved to be serving life in jail, not banned from extra curricular activities.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Instead, he let his disappointment in her—and the entire Guild—be known in a way he realized he should have likely done some time ago. "I'm done."

Both women looked at him in surprise.

"The fact that someone like Rylan could operate freely for this long…" He shook his head. "Maybe if I'd done something sooner instead of trying to play by the rules and mind my own business. But I'm not making that mistake again. I brought it directly to you more than once that Rylan was taking things too far. The most recent time, you basically told me to fuck off and then a few days later came to me and asked for help while telling me to grow up and be an adult…"

"Alex…" Olivia's voice was soft. He turned to her, expecting her to follow his lead, but she shook her head. "I- I get where you’re coming from, but I need more time to think this through. I need time to think about all of this. To get more evidence about Rylan and the sun elves. We need to understand what we're dealing with before making decisions with hot heads. What about Mark and Sam? Are you quitting for them too?"

He understood her decision and didn’t fault her for the logic. Alex knew one thing, though: he was finished taking the cautious approach when it came to decisions like this. "I'm not making decisions for them, but I expect they'll do the same." He looked to Elana before facing Olivia once more and asking, "What if the elves are being let out intentionally? If he allowed their Rift to break for his own gains?"

"If that's what happened? I'm gone. Immediately." Her jaw set, and she looked at Elana as she made the last statement. "But I won't run to the Hunters Association. Not after what happened before." She let out a long breath. "I really want to believe in what's being built here. To believe in you," she said to Elana. "But Rylan has been a problem. I've known it, you've known it… we all have. We've been hoping that his change in behavior recently was real, but that was mostly because we didn't want to deal with the problem to begin with…"

Elana began to type rapidly on her keyboard. “I’m calling an emergency meeting of the moderators now. We need to contain this before-”

“Before what?” Alex asked. His tone was still quiet and measured but cut through the tense silence between them like a blade. “Before word gets out that the Guild’s golden boy has been conspiring with creatures from other worlds? Before people realize how royally fucked up this entire situation is? You’re just going to lie to them?” He turned toward the door. “Good luck with the damage control. I’m going to get my magic back and fix what I can of this mess.”

“Alex,” Elana called after him. “Whatever Rylan’s done… the Guild is bigger than him. Than any other individual. You have to understand that, right? This is meant to be a symbol of freedom for people…”

He paused at the doorway. “Maybe. Maybe that ‘freedom’ is exactly what got us here… But it doesn’t matter. Right now, we’ve all got bigger problems…”

His boots moved from the carpet of the office carpet to the hardwood floors.

No more letting others handle things. I can’t go full tilt into everything, but I’m not going to start learning how to take charge of these situations without just doing it. Even if it means I fuck up here and there… something like this wouldn’t have happened if I had just stomped Rylan out early.

His mind flicked back to all the troubles that his friends had been going through recently and the fact that he was so unprepared that he could have died that very night in his own home because of how passive he’d been.

He heard Olivia’s quick steps catching up to him as he reached the elevator. They rode down in silence. She spoke up as they walked out of the door on the first floor. “You could have at least told me you were going to quit so I could have put some thought into it, too.”

“It wasn’t something I put a lot of thought into, but in the moment… I realized that I likely should have left a while ago. I only stayed because things were comfortable enough. The Guild gave us resources and information and easy access to Rifts.” He looked over at her. “I think it’s that same being comfortable that led me to only really focusing on my magic and helping Mark and Sarah catch up. The same comfortable that led me to think about the house being safe with a modern alarm and a few cameras. Things need to change, Liv. Leaving the Guild is the first change.”

They walked out of the building and down the steps, passing by a group of five people on their way.

“I know. I get that, and I actually really support your decision. If I didn’t feel like I had some sort of personal debt to Elana for all that she’s done for me, I’d likely have left with you right there on the spot… just, talk to me. Okay? Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Part of Alex wanted to explode and snap back at her, though he knew that he didn’t have anything to be angry at her for. The entire situation was just a heaping pile of—

“Trouble in paradise?” a voice called from behind them.

Alex stopped on a dime and felt the hair on his neck stand up. He turned slowly to find Devon sitting on a short half-wall made of brick near a small field of grass. It was an area where many people congregated to relax and pass the time outdoors. Many lounged on blankets in the space even then, despite the rapidly fading light. Three other Awakened stood with him, all wearing knowing smirks.

The cold focus that had settled over Alex during his conversation with Elana found a new target. A deserving one.

He looked around and took in the situation quickly, cataloging each of their levels and classes while approaching at a steady pace. As he approached, Alex thought about how he wanted to handle Devon. A part of him felt that it was necessary to just walk up and punch him… but something about that didn’t seem satisfying enough.

Devon stood as he neared, and his posture shifted from relaxed confidence to guarded and ready.

"Perfect timing." Alex looked at Devon's face closely and read the surprise there. For added effect, Alex activated the [Intimidate] skill for the first time and felt its effect ripple outward. "Let's have a chat."

Devon's smile faltered but didn't vanish completely. "I don't—"

Alex raised his hand to interrupt him. With quick efficiency, he used his threads of mana to lay down a ritual circle at their feet. He discreetly reached to the pouch under his jacket and dropped the two required reagents onto the ritual before activating it.

"What is this?" Devon asked with suspicion.

Alex kept his voice low. "Just some privacy. See," Alex gestured at the crowd, which went instantly silent at a single pulse of his mana. "The spell makes our bubble completely private. You can't hear them, and they can't hear us."

Devon glanced at the onlookers and how several had phones raised. But it was clear that several were turning to talk to one another, and only a faint, muffled sound could be heard from the nearby conversations.

"Just between us," Alex continued and was careful to keep his face neutral and his tone casual. "I know what happened in the Rift with Mark. I know it was Rylan's idea, too."

"So what?" Devon said, relaxing a bit, though he looked cautiously between Alex and his friends, who were having a somewhat loudly muffled conversation with Olivia outside the bubble. "You can't prove anything."

"I don't need to prove it. I just want to understand." Alex kept his tone reasonable and tried to get it to sound almost sympathetic, as if they were longtime friends. "Tell me what happened, and maybe I can focus on Rylan instead of you and your party. He's the one that I actually have a problem with, I'm sure you guys have heard all about it."

Devon’s eyes darted to his companions again as Olivia stood close to them.

“Two people died,” Alex said flatly. “Because of whatever you and Rylan arranged.” He stepped closer. “Look, I’m sure you didn’t mean for things to go that far. So just tell me what really happened. Clear the air.”

Devon swallowed. “It was supposed to be simple, okay? Rylan just wanted to humiliate Mark and make him look incompetent.”

“Go on.”

“I was supposed to call for an early pull. Make it look like Mark couldn’t handle the stress of a serious fight and was too jumpy.” Devon lowered his voice a bit, oblivious to what was happening. “It was just supposed to make him look bad in front of everyone. That’s all. No one was supposed to get hurt, let alone killed. The boss wasn’t supposed to be that strong, and we had healers with us.”

Among the spectators on the outside of the bubble, Alex noticed phones being angled for better recording. Some people were talking to others who’d just arrived and were pointing at Devon, though all conversation was muffled.

“So you admit it was deliberate? On Rylan’s orders?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t supposed to—”

“Go that far? End with dead Awakened?” Alex’s voice remained level. “Just embarrass my friend… for what? To soothe Rylan’s tiny ego?”

Devon paled as he noticed the growing crowd. Something in their movements and the way they were talking made him glance down at the magic circle. He glanced back up at Alex, and understanding dawned on him. “Wait, can they hear us?”

“Every word.” Alex dismissed the ritual, and sound crashed back into them. “The ritual only blocks sound in one direction. I chose to block only what was coming in… not out.”

The color drained from Devon’s face. “You tricked me,” Devon hissed while shooting his friends an accusatory glance.

“And you got two people killed. This place is rotten. All of it. I’m done,” he said, repeating his earlier statement.

Alex activated [Feather Step] and crossed the small distance between them in an instant. His fist connected with Devon’s jaw at a fraction of his full Strength. The measured strike was just enough to knock the man off his feet and cause a solid amount of pain. Devon tumbled backward over the half wall he’d been sitting on before they began talking.

“That’s for Mark,” Alex mumbled.

Prick.

Several of the onlookers let out a collective ‘oooh’, and his friends still didn’t move to help, looking back and forth between Alex and Olivia. When Alex turned to move back to Olivia, he saw her staring at him. Pride, maybe even approval, showed in her eyes as he walked up to her, and they both turned and made their way to the parking lot.

He shook out his hand once but was surprised to find that it didn’t hurt in the least despite hitting the other man hard enough to bust his lip. His phone buzzed, and he checked it to find a text from Sarah.

Sarah: We're at the HA. They want to talk to you ASAP about the magic.

Sarah: Evan is here and says he can go meet you at the checkpoint security to help get you guys through.

"Sarah's at the Hunters Association," he told Olivia as they reached his car. "They want to know more about what was stolen."

Olivia nodded and glanced back at the people still gathered on the small lawn space. "That felt good, didn't it? Calling him out?"

Alex thought of Eura and how the celestial man had shown him that sometimes, power had to be used to force change. "Yeah," he said. "It did. Is it bad that I wish I could have actually hurt him a bit more, though? I feel like I’m not supposed to enjoy it this much, but he did that, knowing full well what would happen to Mark. Sure, maybe it got out of hand, but he intentionally tried to screw him over, and for what? Just to soothe Rylan's ego?"

He reached up and “undid” the clasp of the cloak around his neck, which was just Valtherion’s tale within the illusion and had become a sign for the bond to end the charade and do whatever he wanted.

“Let’s get going and see what the Hunters know about this.”

No more playing nice. No more letting others handle things.