I have rediscovered that waiting is in fact boring, or maybe it's the anxiety. My swirling emotions make less than a minute of waiting feel like an hour. Funny, you don't notice how much your phone keeps you entertained during down time until it's missing. And that reminds me of the painful thought of having to get my phone replaced. I think most of my shit was backed up. I mean, my pictures are the only things I'm really concerned about, and those I know are backed up to the cloud.

Then there is my wallet. My drivers license, DID, the emergency fifty bucks I had on me, and various other random cards, all gone. Those first two are going to be a total pain in the ass to replace. Governments don't like it when you have no way to identify yourself, and as such are reluctant to issue identification.

Suddenly I get the feeling I'm being watched. Specifically the slightly creepy kind that you get when someone is staring at you for too long. I look around, but can't see anything obvious in front of me. Only the still remains of the city.

So I decide to check behind me. And wouldn't you know it, some creepy motherfucker in powerarmor is just standing on top of the remains of the parking garage just staring down at me. I almost jump straight up in surprise, but manage to restrain myself and only stand up off the bench.

We stare in silence for a moment, and when it becomes clear they aren't going to say anything, I decide to open the conversation.

"Uh hi." Only to be met with silence.

"So I um, need some help. If it wasn't obvious." More silence, and it starting to make me concerned.

Suddenly the figure presses something on their left wrist. A few more moments pass, the figure shifting and nodding their head as if they were having a conversation. Probably talking on the radio, but they still haven't said anything to me.

Suddenly their feet lift off the ground, and they start to silently float down towards me. Alarm bells are going off in my head at this point, but in my desperation I quash them. I'm suspicious as shit of course they are going to be a bit weird approaching me.

The defender touches down in front of me, their bulky boots sounding a metallic thunk as they hit the ground. They tower over me, a good two feet in height between their stature and the power armor. The slightly glowing eyes of their helmet stare down their nose at me.

"Um, are you…" I go to ask if they are ok, only for them to interrupt me.

"Lucy Bretmont, correct?" He snaps at me, an older sounding dude apparently, And I'm immediately put on guard by his tone. It's hostile, and a bit haughty.

"Yea, that's me." I reply, taking a step back to get a little bit of distance.

"You are under arrest for treason against humanity and connection with the disappearance of Mark Hamburt. Do not resist." And then the fucker lunges for me.

I barely have time to finish registering what he's said. By the time I start to react he's already in my space and reaching for my arms, trying to grab me so I can't run. I reflexively yank back, and I'm almost not fast enough. But apparently his attempt to grab me is considered an attack. The shield flares up, and he can't get a grip as I jump back and use my flight magic to propel myself away.

For a moment I think I've just screwed myself, no way in hell that's going to slide. Then I notice the symbol on his arm, and recognize it. The name Mark Hamburt also clicks. This guy is Healers inc, and it's pretty obvious why he's after me.

But that brings up more questions, like where is everyone else? No way my flair attracted just this asshole. I don't have time to think of much more as the dickhead boosts himself forward after me.

"Stop resisting or I will use force!" He screams, his helmet speakers amplifying his voice to ear hurting levels.

Yea, fuck that! If this dude gets ahold of me I might never see the light of day again, metaphorically speaking anyways. It's a risk running from him, I might agro every defender in the area. But it's a risk I have to take. Worse case I'll surrender to someone else.

So turn, and bolt away from him at full speed, putting as much mana into my flight magic as possible. Suddenly the street becomes a blur around me. This unfortunately includes the flying figure who darts out right in front of me at the first intersection. I can't react in time to avoid a collision. And neither does the other guy, seemingly just as caught off guard by my appearance as I am by theirs. They manage to stop, but I can only slow down a little before slamming into them at near full speed, sending us both hurtling down the street.

I instantly lose track of both the Healers inc asshole and the guy I collided with as I go spiraling through the air. I use my magic to regain control just in time to come face to face with a light pole as I careen into it. My shield flares into existence, absorbing a lot of the impact but ultimately shattering. So I slam left shoulder first into a light pole, which gives way with the screeching and bending of metal. But it slows me down enough that I crash into the ground at low speed, managing to land on my back and slide only a foot before stopping.

This of course is very unpleasant, and I feel stinging pain in my back while my shoulder is practically on fire from what is probably a dislocation. I try to regather myself and take off again but Healers inc asshole is on top of me instantly.

I hear some shouting coming from behind us, but I can't make it out in the struggle. He grabs both my wrists in an attempt to force them over my head. My shoulder burns like molten lava in protest and I scream. And in retaliation I drive my knee right up into hits nuts as hard as I can. It slams into metal with a loud clank, but still delivers a good amount of force.

It causes the intended effect, the man lets out the most unmanly yelp while jumping in place and becoming distracted. This gives me breathing room breathing room to charge a full power damage screech and blast him in the face with it. Paint flies off the helmet as his head snaps back violently. But not violently enough to disable him apparently.

His gaze crashes back down on me as he recovers from the blast, the anger palpable despite the fact I can't even see his eyes.

"Alright you little shit, you….." he growls as he raises his left hand, the curled first becoming charged with some kind of electricity spell. Then he's suddenly knocked off me mid sentence, being launched across the street to crash through what's left of a building.

I blink in surprise, not seeing what hit the bastard. My question is answered when a giant war hammer comes flying back across the street and straight into the hands of a man on the edge of my vision.

He spits something angrily in French, turning his gaze to me for a second before looking over my shoulder at someone behind me. That's when I finally notice that five of them have spread out around me, with a sixth one floating in the air above.

"Jean, I told you specifically not to send him flying!" The apparently woman floating above me snaps.

I take a quick look around at who I'm dealing with. All of them look to be in their early to late forties. All of them are wearing different armor, but no power armor. The Jean guy is wearing very heavy armor with an urban camo pattern, lots of padding and even some metal on it. The woman above me is wearing ultra light armor, if you could even call it that. I wouldn't be surprised if she was wearing just her grey fatigues with nothing defensive underneath. Three of them are wearing regular armor, just plate carriers with utility shit on it, though one seems to have extra padding on his legs. The last dude is, well he isn't armored per se, but he's wearing enough pouches, bags, and other containers he might as well be armored. He kind of reminds me of a loot goblin looking at him.

As for weapons, the Jean fellow has his hammer. The flying lady and loot goblin don't have anything. Two of the other three have assault rifles of a model I don't recognize, and the third has an older LMG, a saw if I remember correctly. Also none of them look particularly happy right now.

Jean snarls something back in French, which apparently the woman can understand.

"Yes, I know he was chasing around a naked girl. But we can't figure out what exactly is going on without him here." The flying lady says before turning her attention to me.

"Speaking of, care to explain why you…. Oh, well I'll be damned. Jake call…." Except she's interrupted by the building the dickhead flew into across the street exploding again, this time as he flies out of it.

"This is private guild business! You will stop interfering if you know what's good for you!" he screeches as he comes to a halt halfway across the street, posturing in the air like he's ready for a fight as green electricity crackles all over him. Yea, the green electricity is weird, and concerning, since it's probably more powerful than lighting stuff.

There's silence for a moment as every one sizes each other up, and I check to see if I could escape while they are distracted with one another. Probably not, the group of six have fanned out around me and could probably grab me if I moved, even flying, and I've got power armor dude in the other direction.

"Hey girl, are you a part of his guild?" One of the dudes with assault rifles suddenly asks.

My answer is a quick and resounding "Fuck no!" And that seems to do the trick. A chorus of what I'm pretty sure is french cursing, along with most of the rest chiming in.

"Oh, so these assholes really do kidnap people."

"Buddy, you better find somewhere else to be before we beat your ass."

"Did you really think you could get away with this shit on her of all people?"

"Enough bitching! Jake call this in over the radio, and get her something to cover up with." The flying lady snaps.

"And you!" she snaps, turning and pointing an accusatory finger at power armor asshole.

"You have exactly five seconds to explain yourself or leave."

"I do not need to explain myself to you. This is a guild matter, so hand her over or…" power armor says haughtily, only for the guy holding the LMG to interrupt him.

"She already said she wasn't part of your guild. Now piss off before we see how many rounds it takes to get to the center of that suit of power armor."

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

It's a tense stand off for a second, as most of the members of the six man team start to move to position themselves between me and the power armor guy. The dude with a shit ton of bags instead stays behind me, fishing around in his various containers while jabbering phrases and jargon I don't understand into a radio. The final line in particular catches my attention. "Yea, we got Lucy here, probably the one from the message. Yea… ok… look I don't have time for questions. The Green Lighting is on our asses trying to take her and she doesn't wanna go. Get someone else out here before shit goes down harder than it already has!"

The guy in power armor hears this too, and starts to visibly get antsy. I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not actually wanted for treason or anything. Just that The Green Lighting wanted to scare me into compliance so I'd go with him. The Green Lighting, what a lame name. Granted I can't think of a better one, but I'm sure they have literal professionals that specialize in this.

Suddenly Green Lightning decides he has better places to be, darting up without a word to just above the buildings and blasting off, leaving a burst of green static in his wake. Well, better late than never. Now the next question, are my saviors here really that, or did I just jump out of the fire back into the frying pan? Because while I'm fairly sure any other group would be better than Healers Inc, that doesn't automatically make them good.

"Thank god, I sure as hell didn't want to actually fight him." One of the guys with assault rifles says.

"I did, dude clearly needs an ass kicking." The LMG guy replies.

"Maybe, but we aren't getting paid to give him one, And I don't want to deal with the injuries we'd suffer fighting him. We have better things to do." The flying lady says as she floats down to land in front of me.

"Now, you're lucky he wasn't the only one close to your flare. We have a lot of questions, but first let's start with introductions." She continues.

"I'm Mabel, the leader of this group. The guy with the hammer who only speaks French is Jean. He understands English, just refuses to speak it." She points, and Jean responds with something in French.

"The guy with the big gun and the audacity to try and swing above our weight class is Warren, our heavy gunner."

"Sup" Warren replies casually.

"The two twin wannabes here are Arron our summoner and Saul our scout."

"What, it's a good load out!" One replies.

"Not our fault we both have good taste in equipment." The other does.

And yea, looking at them now I can kinda see how they look identical. Obviously there are small differences in their armor, different pouches on the belt and mags strapped down differently among others. But overall it's the same kit. The easiest way for me to differentiate them is the different colored tape all over their guns. Arron was the one with blue tape, and Saul has green.

"And the man about to put the tarp on you is Jake, our hauler, communications, and resident medic." She ends right as a flimsy blue tarp gets laid over my front, covering me from the shoulders down and restoring my modesty.

"I'm Lucy, thanks for the save." I reply, still a little shaken up.

Warren chuckles "Yea, we know. Imagine being so fancy you get magic to announce your presence for you."

Announce my presence? Oh right, the title thing I left turned on, good to see that's working. Though I wonder what that looks like to others. Why not ask?

"What does that look like to you guys?" I ask.

"You don't know?" Mabel asks me back.

"No, all it told me is that it informs others of my name and title." I reply.

"Ah yes, magic being obscure in its descriptions, never ever does that." Warren replies sarcastically.

"To us it's your name and title presented by one of the mental notifications, you know, the non visual ones. But only when we look at you. It stays till we look away." Saul helpfully answers.

Huh, bolded system message then. Though staying while they look at me might be annoying, I guess it's a good thing I can turn it off if needed.

"Hey, hate to rain on the topic at hand but what's wrong with your shoulder?" Jake suddenly asks. I guess they noticed I didn't want to move it much.

"I dislocated it when I, uhh, collided with your leader here. Sorry about that by the way."

"No hard feelings, you were running from trouble. That's what I get for flying around complacent. This whole area's been low activity lately so we figured the flare was someone who got lost or needed specialized assistance with something."

"Jean, hold her while I reset the shoulder. This is going to hurt like hell for a moment. But it will feel a lot better after it's fixed." Jake says as he positions himself to presumably fix it.

"Now hold on a sec…" is all I get out as I turn to look at the approaching Jean. Turns out Jean was just the distraction, as the moment I look away Jake grabs my arm and lifts it hard before giving it a hard shove.

It has the assumedly intended effect of popping my shoulder back in. It also hurts, almost worse than when it popped out.

"Mothefucker!" I curse at him, yanking my 'fixed' shoulder away.

"Works every time."

"Hey shouldn't we have like, let an actual doctor do that?" Arron asks.

"We're in an active conflict zone technically. We don't know if green lighting is planning on coming back or if someone else is going to try something. We can't be too careful right now. Having her at full capacity is more important." Mabel says, her eyes scanning the street.

While I appreciate being able to move my arm again without enduring total agony, I still don't like the leftover throbbing pain. So I pull up a quick heal and pop it on my shoulder, the soothing magic instantly wiping away the left overs.

"Look at that, don't even need to get her to a healer. She's packing her own spells." Saul states.

"Oh nice. Hey Lucy, are you looking for a group by chance?" Warren asks.

"Warren." Mabel calls him warningly.

"What I'm just askin!"

Yea, I don't think they are asking with bad intentions. Hell, Mabel apparently doesn't want to broach the subject. Though she might just be waiting for later and Warren is overstepping. They don't seem like the kind to get angry if I turn them down. Honestly the worst thing I see them doing is turning me over to the highest bidder, so to speak. And even then, I doubt it. If they wanted to they could have told The Green Lighting to pay them to look the other way. I don't think they are gonna try and screw me over, but I still don't know their angle either.

"I already have a guild in mind." I reply. A bit of a bluff, but better to deflect then tell my rescuers straight up no.

Which reminds me, who the fuck am I going to join? I couldn't fly solo before, definitely can't now, that has been made very clear by The Green Lightning. I giggle a little thinking again of how lame that name is. But in all seriousness, I have no idea.

It's not just me who needs protection, what about Tommy, dad, mom, hell even the twins. I can somewhat handle myself, but if anyone goes after them they will probably get hurt, or worse.

So that immediately knocks small guilds out of the running, they just won't have the resources. A large guild would theoretically be best. But a large guild will make me have to put up with excessive amounts of guild internal politics bullshit. And I'm already going to have plenty of other bullshit to worry about. Actually, I wonder if I can leverage whatever guild I join to deal with the extra bullshit for me. I don't know if medium guilds are off the table. Probably less internal politics, but less resources as well.

Ah who am I kidding, I don't need resources. I'm not looking to become the most powerful in the world. I just need my T's cross and my I's dotted. A recent name immediately springs to mind, I wonder if Renders would still be interested. They offered a really good deal before, and weren't total asshats about trying to talk to me. I don't think I would mind joining them, and they are about the only known quantity I've got right now. If I remember right they did demon hunting. I don't want to really go hunting, I've had my fill for a lifetime. But I think my abilities are more suited for supporting from the rear anyways.

A beep draws my attention from my thoughts. I find the street now suddenly swarming with a mix of military personnel and defenders and in the distance I hear the distinct sound of helicopters closing in. Mabel is talking with another defender, while an entirely new set has augmented the guard around me. One of whom is scanning me with a handheld scanner. When did all these new people get here?

Another beep, short and low, indicating a negative. A moment later it beeps again, then starts screeching like a banshee, drawing the attention of everyone not on watch duty.

I feel my fucking heart stop dead, but the operator seems borderline unbothered. He gives it a good whack on the side with his free hand, causing it to shut up. Then he scans me again, which returns negative, before hitting it a fourth time which also comes back clean.

"Piece of shit, high end equipment my ass." he mutters as he stows the scanner and walks off.

Everyone else seems content to go back to what they were doing while I try to get my heartrate back under control. I guess they thought it was a false positive, thank god.

The sounds of helicopters reaches its peak as two apaches fly by overhead. I'm left gawking at the sheer response. Then again, The green Lighting seemed like he had some power, given how my saviors expressed relief over not fighting him.

They might have stacked up the response just in case they actually had to deal with him.

Suddenly one of the T shaped drop ships flies overhead, its engines roaring as it comes to a stop and hovers in the air above us. It has some kind of personnel transport module mounted on it. A ramp at the back drops open, five sets of ropes dropping down into the middle of the street, followed shortly after by four men and a stretcher. No one around here looks hurt, so I'm going to guess they are here for me. The men land almost simultaneously with light thuds, two are clearly armed with rail guns, the other two are only armed with duffel bags packed to the brim with medical stuff. The group immediately makes a beeline for me after the medics finish disconnecting the stretcher.

"Alright, she's your problem now. You know where to find us if you have any more questions. We need to finish up our patrol route." Mabel says to the man she's talking to.

"They haven't said if they want you straight back for debrief or not. So run with that plan for now but keep your ears on the radio. Don't be surprised if they recall you and pass your route to someone else." He replies before turning to approaching newly dropped group.

"Alright wrap her up. The finder team reports no visible injuries on her, just a dislocated shoulder that they already reset and she healed. I want her out of here before some more stupid shit goes down or someone else tries something." He barks at them.

The group gets to me, and the medics get to work looking me over, much to my chagrin. There's nothing wrong with me, so it doesn't last long thankfully. Then I'm loaded onto the stretcher, and as they're about to start strapping me in I realize, I'm about to take a one way trip on a military transport to god knows where. And I figure I need to be better safe than sorry.

I need someone to at least know where I am, someone with enough muscle to yank me out in a worse case scenario. And unfortunately that doesn't mean my dad or the family lawyer. Renders it is then, and I need to get word to them that I'm still interested. Thankfully I have a semi friendly third party still here, who would probably do it for a small bribe.

"Mabel, hang on a second!" I shout to the party lead as she gets ready to fly off up the street to catch up with the rest of her team who have set off.

She turns around in surprise, but ultimately floats over when I wave her closer.

"What's up kid? I know it's sudden but these guys are gonna take care of you. We gotta finish our route."

"Just wanted to say thanks, and ask a small favor if your willing."

"Oh, what might that be?" She asks, classic eyebrow raise and amused look on her face.

"Can you contact the guild I was talking with, Renders? Ask them to tell my dad I'm alive and uhhhh, send someone over to help me out." I say, mustering as much confidence as I can.

Mabel sees right through to my uncertainty, probably figuring out what I'm up to immediately.

"Maybe kid, but that's gonna take some effort and we are mercs after all. What's in it for us?" She asks playfully. Judging from her tone, she's just messing with me and probably would do it for free if I pressed and begged a smidge. But that's not necessary, and a little extra motivation will probably go a long way.

I hold out my hand and form a healing spell crystal. She gives the process a curious look till the end, when I grasp and then hold out the finished crystal to her to take.

"Neat trick, but a shiny rock ain't worth much. I'm assuming it has a function?" She asks quizzically.

"Crush it and find out." I tell her with a smile.

She wearily takes the crystal, eyeing it up for a few seconds before shrugging and crushing it within her finger tips. I watch the confusion overtake her as she realizes what it does. Then the shock when she touches me and casts a minor heal spell, one I presume she doesn't actually have access to in her spell list. My point made, I hammer home my request, along with the guiding carrot.

"Get word to Renders, and I'll see that you get some more of those and stay on the sell to list." I say as the medics finish strapping me into the stretcher and start hooking it up the ropes.

"You got yourself a deal kid. And don't go flaunting that by the way. To many…."

"I'm well aware, trust me. I don't plan on giving Healers Inc any more reasons." I interrupted her.

She barks a laugh in response. "Stay safe kid." Before flying back towards her group waiting for her at the end of the street.

The stretcher lurches and I begin to ascend towards the hovering drop ship. Two men are already at the top, guiding the ropes to keep it steady. Once at the top, I'm pulled in, wheeled into the middle of the clearly medical compartment, and locked into place as the final two are winched in and the ramp closes. One of the soldiers keys his radio and gives the all in confirmation, the transport starts smoothly accelerating forward. And now I'm out of one frying pan, and probably into another.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.