“I can’t believe they wanted me to give up my swords!” Izzy complained. “What am I supposed to do without them?”

“... not fight monsters?” Midnight replied.

“Are you crazy? The very first thing when I came here was a giant monster invasion! How would anyone survive in constant danger?”

“There are heroes and mercenaries and stuff,” Midnight said. “And this hasn’t happened for like, months.”

“... That’s not a long time, Midnight.”

“Hmm. Turlough said you came from a peaceful world with nothing to fight. I guess it’s true.”

“He said that, huh? Well it’s not fully accurate. Otherwise why would I carry these with me?” Izzy pat the short swords at her waist. “The roads have danger, and the peace is… exaggerated.”

“I see. Turlough didn’t think so. He could barely level up at all due to his curse… you’d think if there was something to fight, he’d find it.”

“He’d have to know where to look.” Izzy watched as Midnight jumped up to press a button on one of the poles at the edge of the street. Then soon enough the image of a walking person appeared across the street, and they could go past all of the ‘cars’ without worrying much. Based on the directions her new home should be nearby. They’d offered to escort her, but she wanted to learn to find her way around this city.

The apartment building wasn’t anything exciting to look at. They went inside and used an elevator- which fortunately had additional buttons down low for smaller sized people- and walked along a hall until they reached a room. Her key opened it, confirming it was the right one.

It entered into a kitchen. There was a small bathroom off to the side as well as a rear bedroom. Sliding step ladders were placed around the area so she could reach higher places, as most of the stuff was sized for larger people.

“This is a big place. I can really stay here for free?” Izzy asked.

“... you and Turlough have low standards,” Midnight commented. He wasn’t sure how much talking about that was good, but there wasn’t really a lot of common ground for the two otherwise. Even the magic that allowed them to talk was technically Turlough’s, at some level.

Izzy walked over to the outside window, glad to have a view even though it was of a strange city. “I guess I’m stuck here now, huh?”

“I’m not sure what else you should have expected,” Midnight said. “Tur- er, what do you know about portals? How common are they in your world?”

“Not that common,” Izzy said. “Especially not ones like this. I just hadn’t really thought about what happened after.”

A concerning similarity, though in Turlough’s case Midnight remembered him believing there was ‘probably something dangerous’.

“Well.” Izzy shifted between her feet. “Thanks for helping me out. I should be able to handle everything from here.”

“... you’re as bad as I was,” Midnight commented. “How are you going to manage, exactly?”

“I have a place to live, and they have food here, right?”

“Sure. But you don’t have any way to talk to anyone.”

“I’ll figure it out. I’m quick with languages.”

“Uh huh, and then what?”

“Who knows, I’ll handle it on my own.”

“And you’re going to make up with Turlough… when exactly?”

“Eventually,” Izzy said, crossing her arms. “I don’t have a specific time in mind.”

“The last time that happened, I believe you didn’t talk to each other for a decade. And then you got into a fight,” Midnight pointed out. “I’m not saying this is all your fault, but you have control over some of this.”

“Yeah but I immediately got way too serious. I could have killed him! Or at least badly injured him, if he didn’t have Stoneskin.”

“That is a problem you’ll have to work on,” Midnight admitted. “Though I imagine if your attacks had more effect you would have stopped. Regardless, I don’t think Turlough is the type to hold a grudge for attempting physical harm against him.”

“You say that, but how does he feel right now? You said he was angry.”

“He is still angry. But I don’t think the punching part is what upset him. Though it might have made it worse.” Midnight flicked his tail. “I’m not an… emotion doctor. But based on what you have said about your former odd friendship it might have just reminded him of that time. I don’t think this is going to resolve itself with more waiting. We should go.”

“What like… right now?”

“Do you have something else to be doing? Urgent appointments, perhaps?”

“Well I kind of just got here and… fine.” Midnight’s disappointed look got her to back down. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You said you want to resolve things. We should do that.” He looked at her resting her hands by her waist, and her swords. “You should probably leave those.”

“It’s okay, I have a license now!” She held up her ID card. “... This is the wrong one, isn’t it?”

“It’s the other one,” Midnight said. “But if we run into problems I’ll cast Translation for you. Though I guess I can do it now. It’s a bit of a walk.”

“Can’t we take one of those car things?”

“Do you have money?” Midnight asked.

“Sure,” Izzy said, pulling out a pouch and shaking it. “I brought money.”

“Show me.” A small pile of gold, silver and copper coins poured onto the floor. “That’s… actually some of those could be sold, but they’re not usable as is.”

“Are the coins the wrong size? I figure they can weigh them.”

“... I seem to have missed some parts of the explanation. Let me tell you about money.” After he gave a general overview, they were off. “I do have money, actually. But it’s not that far. You are good at walking, right?”

“It’s literally my job! Or it was. Would have been a bit faster with a horse but they’re so expensive.”

“Then we’ll walk. One ride is a lot of food. I heard there used to be a cheaper ‘subway’ thing that was an undercity train, but it broke.”

Midnight’s knowledge of the streets in this section was a little fuzzy. Much better than when he had first arrived, of course, but he was more familiar with the area around his new home. It was trivial to navigate to Turlough though. That was the initial purpose of the bond, since he’d… been having trouble taking care of himself. But Midnight was much more responsible now.

He didn’t think much of cutting through an alleyway behind Bay View Heights. He didn’t even get concerned when he spotted a few people hanging out. They didn’t look particularly rough, and they had some of those t-shirts with a hero on it. One of the bright colored ones.

It would have probably suited him to pay a bit more attention, where he could have noticed they had lead pipes and baseball bats. Even that wouldn’t have been a big issue as people normally ignored cats or the equivalent. There was the issue of also having a guest with him, but ultimately it didn’t matter.

“Hey, that’s his cat!” One of the half dozen people standing around said.

“Are you sure?” asked the lone woman among them.

“Yeah! It’s black! And what else would it be doing around here?”

“Actually, stray cats are really common around here.”

“I’m not a cat!” Midnight snapped. “I’m a Celmothian.”

“See, it talks! Get it!”

One of the larger men stepped forward, reaching for Midnight. He was a bit too slow to react, and found himself grabbed by the scruff of the neck. Except he was yanked backwards, away from the big guy.

“What are you doing?” Izzy said, stepping forward as she dropped Midnight behind her.

“Get out of the way kid. We have business with that cat.”

Izzy carefully looked over the group. “Midnight is my friend. Back off.”

“Just get out of the way,” the big guy reached down to grab her shoulder. She grabbed his wrist right back and twisted her body, kicking off the ground to swing at him. His arm was fully outstretched so she couldn’t reach much but that very same arm, kicking him in the bicep before she tumbled away. It probably didn’t even hurt because the situation was inappropriate for her fighting style.

“What was that?”

“The kid’s a super!” the lone woman commented.

“I’m not a kid!” Izzy growled.

“Oh, good,” said one with a lead pipe. “Then I won’t feel bad about this.”

Izzy thought she was being really nice when she only slid out of the way of the attack instead of drawing her sword and stabbing it into his thigh, but apparently she was going too easy on them because a moment after that…

“Ah, screw it. Everyone, get her!”

She wasn’t worried about six normal people attacking her at once. Apparently people didn’t even have classes in this world. Then the lead pipe and one of the baseball bats began to glow with a golden light, with glowing armor appearing around some of the others.

She should have just stabbed first.

-----

I wasn’t really paying attention to Midnight approaching. His mood was vaguely nervous or uncomfortable, a tinge of concern, but that’s how he’d been lately. I tried to talk to him about it but he only said crazy things. Him being worried about me? What for?

When it changed to slightly alarmed, I actually took notice. When it escalated to panic I was up on my feet getting ready to go out. When I felt mana coming from someone else? I began to sprint.

I could vault directly over the wall to get there sooner, but it was only very slightly out of my way to use the proper exit and go around to the end of the alleyway. It was probably better to have a good angle on whatever was happening than to throw myself into the thick of things.

When I got there, I saw a whole bunch of glowing magic surrounding people there. I knew none of that came from myself or Midnight, but instead it was everyone there. But it was definitely magic. I hadn’t encountered it that often but… it felt like paladin magic?

Then there was one other figure emitting a trail of magic, darting around between the six larger figures. Midnight was just off to the side, shouting something I couldn’t quite make out. The halfling responded with something, and Midnight charged beneath the legs of the thugs.

The whole battle was a mess, and with someone in there I didn’t want to hit I couldn’t exactly just start slinging spells. Plus, I would get in trouble for using powers on civilians. But they also had magic, so maybe they were supers?

And why was Izzy there? Was she with Midnight?

My thoughts were further jumbled by the fact that her movement suddenly went from hard to follow to mini-Shockwave levels. I couldn’t have told you how close they really were to the same speed, just that she surpassed the level I could follow. Her swords deflected swings from heavy weapons all around her as she weaved her way around, jabbing the butt of her shortswords into various places on the mid and lower bodies of the attackers. I was gathering mana, unsure of exactly what I was going to use it for. Haste? Sonic Lance? One of the bigger ones.

Most of them fell quickly. Even their magic glowing armor was sliced through like they’d never even spent points to power up their defenses. Amateurs. They would be very dead if Izzy hadn’t been so careful to not actually stab them.

There was only one left, and he took a wide swing with his pipe, swinging it like a golf club- which was the actual ‘weapon’ one of the others had. Izzy easily dodged but… Midnight was just behind her at that moment. My cat buddy was sent flying down the alley towards me.

Sonic lance it was, then. Who did this guy think he was anyway?

“Restraint!” a black figure leapt into my eyesight. “Calm! Down! Buddy!” Midnight said, getting in the way of my shots as he jumped up. “Don’t kill civilians!”

That was… probably good advice, yeah. And with how he was moving, Midnight seemed to be okay. The guy who clubbed him had also gone down a moment later, so I could only really shoot at someone already on the ground, or release the mana. I reluctantly did the latter.

“I’msosorryturloughididntmeantoleaveforthatlongcanyoueverforgiveme?” Izzy was suddenly in front of me, speaking a jumble of words. There was a brief pause, then she threw something at me. “Masteruvitharsaidyoumightneedthisgoodbyeforever!” Then she was gone, though I could vaguely track her movement down the alley so it was clearly sub-Shockwave speed.

…What? I didn’t catch any of that. I looked down at the book that had bounced off of my Force Armor. ‘Basics of Magic to Hidden Secrets: An Instructional Guide for Instructors of Magic’.

Why was there a book? I picked it up and looked down at Midnight. “Are you sure you’re alright, Midnight?”

“I’m fine,” he said. I bent down to touch him and felt a twinge of pain. “Obviously not. That clearly hurts.”

“... most of that was your hand.”

I looked down at my hand. “... when did that happen?” I vaguely recalled something about a brick wall? “Was that Izzy? Do you know Izzy, Midnight?”

“Hah,” Midnight sighed. “She was supposed to come talk to you, but then she did… that.” Midnight looked down the alley, “I don’t think she realized that Haste made her talk faster.”

I snorted. “How silly. Come on Midnight, let’s get your side looked at.” Pain. “And my hand. We can go find her later.”