Flint had never seen a bear. Not in person. They weren’t found in Gol, and things that weren’t found in Gol were things that he had simply never been provided the chance to see- save for that which he’d encountered over his few days in Bermuda.

He fancied, however, that it was indeed a bear. For a start, it fit the description he’d gotten from Rocha. Eight feet from front to back, and five from shoulder to foot. Shaggy fur that seemed almost too thick to move in, rolling with every step of the creature’s padded feet. A snout too fat for a dog, yet too long for a cat, and a pair of eyes that somehow combined the fearful madness of prey with the cold killer’s instinct of a predator.

The old soldier had always been laughed at, upon bringing up that last point. Mockingly called the poet, weaving flowery words like he were trying to open the legs of whoever heard the story.

Looking at the creature now, feeling his hands tremble at the sheer size of the thing even as it approached, Flint found it hard to find anything particularly funny about it.

The box was large, at least twenty paces from one side to another, and the bear was separated from Flint by four fifths of that span. He wasn’t sure how quickly it could move, but he doubted he’d get a better chance to fill himself with magic.

Eyes on the animal the entire time, Flint extended his senses to the area around him. He was in luck, his confiscated arcstock crystals lay just by the edge of the makeshift arena.

As he began to funnel magic from them, the bear stepped forwards. The simple motion brought Flint’s heart into his throat, and the sheer abruptness of it shocked him into letting the magic slip. He cursed under his breath, quickly gripping it anew with his presence.

By that time, the predator had drawn two yards closer.

Flint found his eyes held by the deep, dark pits of the animal, and with a sinking horror he realised something that hadn’t been immediately apparent. The beast was hungry.

The bear continued approaching, and by the time Flint had finished drawing the magic out of his crystal it was halfway to him. The magic began pouring down a corridor of anti-magic, squeezed towards Flint like always, but with a new time limit.

Knowing that there was power travelling his way, a fighting chance against such a beast, but being unable to see, feel or even sense it was perhaps the most uniquely frustrating experience of Flint’s life.

Hunching down, the bear started to lower itself, and Flint’s heart nearly stopped as he recognised the stance. He swore a curse as it took off towards him in a sprint, mouth opened slightly and drool flecking back into its face- plucked from its open maw and hurled back by the wind created by its own speed.

And then the magic reached him. It enveloped and filled his body all at once, leaving him the centre of a torrentuous vortex of energy and power. The hairs stood up all across his body, the world seemed to drag to a crawl, and he saw colours and textures focus in ways they never would normally, sharpened. More distinct.

By the time the bear, now seeming as sluggish as befit its bulk, reached Flint, he had acclimated to the arc crystal’s contents. When it was three paces away, he drew his right hand back and tightened his grip on the cobble. As it narrowed that distance to two, he swung down.

His timing was perfect, and the moment it came to within one pace- arm’s reach- the bear’s snout was met with the lump of stone. Cobble met bone, and the animal made a great snorting-grunt as its head was forced downwards by the impact.

Flint found a grin tugging at his mouth, born from the ease with which he’d intercepted the monstrous predator’s attack. It died as he realised the hulking mass of his enemy hadn’t slowed just because he’d rocked its head, and before he could do anything else a hundred stone of fat, muscle and fur took his legs out from under him.

Up became down, and the sky turned to a ceiling of wood as Flint spiralled into it. His face struck the planks hard, and something gave both in them and his own flesh. Then he continued turning, momentum carrying him over onto his back and leaving him staring dazed up at a hundred grinning faces lining the edges of the pit.

A growl reached his ears, and with a jolt Flint remembered where he was. He rolled onto his knees and stumbled to his feet- just in time to stare wide-eyed for the half-second it took the bear to complete its lunge.

He grunted and reeled from a paw slamming to his chest. Claws raked against nylon, and he fought to remain upright. Managing to straighten an instant later, he stared into the animal’s eyes, meeting black with his own brown.

It lunged again, and so did Flint. He had no cobble this time, must have dropped it in the struggle, but his magic-hardened fist served as bludgeon enough. Knuckles dug into the thick hide of the bear’s neck, and beady eyes seemed to bulge from the shock of the impact. Flint felt a shot of pain arc up into his wrist, dismissing it with a thought as his target stumbled back.

Hand to hand combat training had never been a priority in Wrath, and yet when each day had a dozen hours of drills crammed into it, even tertiary areas became well-oiled indeed.

Flint had been taught to fight men, not four-legged animals, but trench fighting was trench fighting. Throats were throats, eyes were eyes, and a stumbling enemy was stumbling all the same.

Before the bear could regain its senses, he followed its instinctive retreat. As it stared up blearily, he seized both sides of its head and strained every muscle in his body to lift it slightly. Flint reckoned that with the magic in him, he had the strength of ten men, but even that barely brought the front half of the creature a few inches from the ground.

Fortunately, he needed to lift it no higher than that.

Just when it seemed the animal would strike out, thrash free of his grip and sink jagged teeth into him, Flint dragged it back down. The bear’s lower jaw met his knee, and a sickening crack filled the air.

It screamed, raw and primal in a way that cut Flint to his core, before flailing out a head-sized paw madly. The wild swing took him by surprise, knocking him to the ground and sending him rolling a pace away. When Flint looked back to the animal, he saw it hunched over, as it had been earlier.

No. Not like earlier. The previous crouch had been one of tension and coiled power, produced by great musculature straining to prepare and unleash every ounce of its strength as quickly as possible.

This was a pitiful sight, even when not compared to such a fierce one as that. The bear’s head was down, yet Flint could see just from a glance that the creature’s maw was misshapen, a jagged lump clearly visible in the lower half of its snout.

Bone pressing into skin from beneath.

Straightening up, Flint allowed the anxiety to leak from him as the bear shuffled away, still mewling pathetically. He brought his head up and scanned the watching mass of men for their leader, quickly finding her and resting his gaze upon her red eyes.

Much to his satisfaction, he saw the woman was thoroughly irked.

“Do I have to kill it, as well?” He called out. For a moment he feared she might order him shot, such was the apparent fury of her rictus. Instead, she simply shook her head.

“No need,” she replied, voice tediously slowed by the magic in Flint’s vessel. “We have a healer amongst us, there’s no point in putting down an animal when it might recover. Considering how difficult it was to get, at least.”

At a gesture from the woman, a rope ladder was cast down the side of the pit. Flint glanced back at the bear, noting that it was backed away from him and still doing little but whimper. Even so, he turned his back to it only hesitantly.

The rungs wavered as he scaled them, and Flint came to the top certain that he’d be flung back down by a boot. He wasn’t, and in fact was given a wide berth by those waiting around the area he climbed over.

Pyrhic was stood by Adelina’s side, looking considerably more secure than she had before. As Flint approached the pair, he began trying to pick out the face of the man who’d disarmed him from the crowds.

“Where are my guns?” He demanded, not bothering with the tone of false-politeness that seemed to have become so strangely prevalent in his life of late.

As one of the gangers handed back his much-missed weaponry, Pyrhic began to speak.

“So, I take it that my bodyguard’s performance is sufficient to buy us some answers?”

The red eyed woman’s anger was palpable.

“It was, ask away.”

“Splendid. Then you can start by answering my first. Did you or your people have any involvement in the death of Reginald Tamaias?”

“We did not, and before you ask, we don’t know who did, either.”

Pyrhic didn’t waver, if anything growing more intense as she spoke.

“That’s curious, I don’t suppose you know where else on the island one might find someone capable of slaying a Demigod-scale mystic?”

“If you’re asking about an individual person, then I don’t know why you’re saying “else” as if we have one here.”

The assistant arched an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Don’t try to fool me, I’ve heard from several sources that you have a Demigod in your midst.”

The almost hysterical look on Adelina’s face as she let out a shrill laugh nearly made Flint go for a gun.

“Oh, and what sources are those? Whoever they are, they’re wrong. We have a Demigod, alright, but he’s not in our midst. And he’s definitely not something I’ll be talking about with you.”

It took Flint a second to recognise the new expression on the red-eyed woman’s face, so foreign did it seem against her smooth features. Fear. More, perhaps. Utter terror. Like a child fearing his first battle.

“But you are aware that any kind of connection with a Demigod, and your own… expertise, make your little menagerie an extremely strong suspect. There was an eyewitness account putting a certain man at the scene, and we have reason to believe it was compromised. You do have mystics among you, a large variety in fact. And more than a few of them possess the necessary abilities to interfere with magical forms of observation, correct?”

Red eyes narrowed at that.

“We could interfere, if we wanted to, but we didn’t. We’ve been preparing for a job, this last fortnight. That leaves us little room to involve ourselves in Immortal politics.”

“Might I inquire as to what that job is?” Pyrhic pressed. Her words were met with a disparaging scoff.

“You most certainly may not, it has no bearing on your little investigation.”

“Very well,” Pyrhic muttered. “Can you tell me of any other groups or individuals who may have the ability to interfere with scrying magic? Or better yet, one capable of slaying a Demigod level mystic?”

Another scoff, this time dismissive.

“Don’t waste my time with stupid questions, no single person on this entire island could kill a Demigod while hiding from those bastards in the Sieve. Immortals like that aren’t exactly sneaky, you know.”

“And my other question?” Pyrhic replied stiffly, apparently miffed at the off-handed, glancing remark about Alabaster.

Adelina seemed to give genuine thought for a few moments, chewing a lip in concentration. With a start, she turned to one of the gangers.

“Go and prepare a list of the misters that we know of.”

The woman she’d spoken to nodded, then turned and headed to the exit without another word.

Looking back at Pyrhic, Adelina spoke levelly.

“That shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, she’ll just need to check with a few of our more street-weary associates.”

“I see,” Pyrhic snipped. “Then while she returns, have you any way of substantiating your innocence?”

Crimson eyes seemed to catch fire with amusement at that.

“I was under the impression that the duty fell on the accuser to substantiate my guilt.”

“I wasn’t accusing you, merely seeking to rule you out.”

“In that case, no.”

The two stared at one another intently, so intently in fact that Flint wondered for a moment if they would come to blows. Finally, Pyrhic looked away, and he saw a flicker of pride in the gang-leader at her own petty victory.

When the woman returned, it was with a tattered-looking piece of paper. She handed it to Adelina, who passed it onto Pyrhic wordlessly. Though the preternatural speed had faded from him, Flint still caught a glimpse of it as it was exchanged. The spidery, messy handwriting reminded him of his own.

“Is there anything else?” Adelina asked, a false smile affixed back onto her face. Pyrhic turned from the woman and began stepping sharply away as she spoke.

“There is not, though I may have further questions at a later time.”

The smile didn’t leave Adelina’s face as she answered.

“If you come back here, we’ll shoot on sight.”

Flint managed to avoid informing her that, if he saw fit to return after the bitch made him fight a bear, she would be very unlikely to see him coming.

***

“That went quite well,” Pyrhic remarked as they began their trudging journey back. Flint found himself staring at her.

“I almost died.”

“You’ve almost died every week of your life.”

Flint found that, despite his annoyance, he couldn’t quite argue with that,