Ben watched it all happen as if in slow motion. His body was extended, one foot off the ground, one leg planted, in the process of launching himself forward. His Utility Pocket began the process of selecting a weapon, a spear, with which to intervene. His royal power, his aura, whatever it was called, tensed and flexed, ready to blast forth like heat from a furnace, to scorch the bones of his foes and warm the blood of his friends. Frankie had assumed his position in the heart of his Utility Pocket, lending his advanced intelligence and his growing number of minions to it, allowing it to respond to even the most unformed and vague command correctly.

He could, would have been there in a moment, in-between the two, ready to fight, saved from the action only by a large hand extended out by a friend. Short Bus stopped him, a funny look on his face. A little grin, a lightness in the eyes, his body relaxed enough to be reassuring. He said nothing, and that was all that needed to be said.

“So you finally reveal yourself,” Red growled, her voice practically feral in its rage, “I grew tired of watching you lurk behind me.” The man was silent, his blindfolded face revealing nothing. “Well!” Red said, “Come! I’ve seen your kind before, I know why you are here! I am hounded after my every victory over the endless,” there was a pause, every ounce of contempt Red had was poured into the next word, “mass of Chaos that dares call itself a horde, let alone an army! Your betters have tried, and they have failed time and time again! I should have known better than to expect it would be better, here, in this defiant persistence you call reality! Come, you coward, come and try to slay the demon!” She was breathing hard, her eyes burning with hurt turned to hardness long, long ago.

“You are an angel, then,” he said, speaking as though it were a plain and simple thing. Red froze, literally stopped moving for a fraction of a second. Her eyes, which could see everything, which could even see lies for the price of her mana, searched.

“No one has ever called me an angel before,” she said, still in a combative posture, yet no longer moving. Ben could practically feel, through the soul bond they shared from The Quest, her heart beat in her chest. Ba-dump.

There was an electricity in the air, a charged, chemical, emotional, spiritual valence between the two. Ben blinked several times, looking from the silent, clearly blind [Paladin] or some such class variant, to the still frozen Red, with her wildly beating heart.

“Wait,” Ben said, literally feeling the feeling grow in intensity.

“Oh. My. God,” Short Bus said, his eyes going wide, getting a huge, sappy smile on his face.

“No,” Ben said, then started waving his hands around as if to clear the suddenly really intimate, romantic fog that had suffused the air. It was getting so bad, so intense, that trivial elementals were forming, the emotion intense enough that mana was able to crystalize on it. They were little red hearts and tiny cherubs, forming in the general vicinity of Red.

Similarly, around the blind man, elemental beings of romance and attraction, taking the form of red and white roses, taking the form of wedding bells and golden rings, began to form around him as well. The elemental beings were singing, the bells were ringing, and Red was about to take a step forward. If Ben hadn’t stepped forward, [Leaping] between the two, she might have jumped the guy’s bones right there.

“Nuh-uh,” Ben said, waiving a finger at the armored priest, “no,” he said again, shaking his head, then turning around to look at Red. One of her eyes stayed on the man, the other turned to Ben.

“My prince!” she said suddenly, snapping out of the moment.

“We’re leaving,” Ben said.

“What is your name, angel?” the man asked.

“Red! What is yours?”

“Charles,” he said.

“Charles,” Red repeated, as Ben gently grabbed her hand and started walking her away from the situation. Short Bus was openly, and widely, smiling, looking from Red to Charles. He stared guffawing, pointing at Charles, his small shark eyes watering a bit as he started laughing.

“Oh man!” Short Bus said, “You’re so screwed! She’s going to eat you alive! Ahahahahaha!” Charles’s face moved, just for a moment, as he considered what was just said. Then, he gave a little nod of acknowledgement, as if to say that Short Bus was right, and that it would not deter him. Short Bus started laughing even harder.

“Short Bus!” Ben yelled, “Stop mocking the poor guy, we’ve got to move!” Red, trailing behind Ben, turned her whole head to look at Charles, looking behind her with a smile on her face. From one of her eyes, a ball of energy fell into a waiting hand. It was, predictably, a small eye. Red gave it a kiss, then blew it at Charles. It flew through the air and landed in an armored hand.

“Find me later!” Red called, and Charles smiled that damn smile.

“Oh this is going to be trouble,” Ben said, pushing through the crowd that had assembled to look at the literally glowing human who’d just touched the Capital Crystal.

--

“I’m just saying now’s not really a good time to start a relationship,” Ben explained for what felt like the fifth time to an uncharacteristically bouncy, dreamy, Red. Ben had, through no foresight of his own and only the endless kleptomania of his as of yet unknown colony of Utility Pocket Elementals, produced a set of clothing for Red. Ben just assumed he picked it up somewhere, because he’d long ago stopped keeping track of everything in his inventory. If he needed something, his Utility Pocket just seemed to give him the best thing available to fit the need.

Ben didn’t question it partly because he was naive, partly because he was kind of an idiot, and partly because he really thought it was supposed to work like that. Also, it was super convenient. Convenience, as everyone knows, is the great panacea which soothes all doubts and moral complications.

“Did you see how large he was under his armor?” she asked, and Ben then had the uncomfortable reminder that Red had, for lack of a better term, x-ray vision, and that you were always naked around Red. Ben decided that asking Red to clarify what she was talking about was only inviting disaster, so he changed the subject.

“Well!” he said loudly enough that Short Bus could hear him, “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

“Psst, hey, Red, psst,” Short Bus said, edging in closer to her and ‘whispering’ as quietly as he could, which wasn’t quiet, at all, “I was reading Ben’s mind and he didn’t want to ask, but when you say large-”

Red’s smirk left nothing to the imagination.

“Oh my god,” Ben said, “Red did you even kill anyone on your way to the Capital Crystal?”

“What!” Red said, sounding outraged, while Short Bus said, ‘Well if looks could kill, I know at least one guy,’ then started snickering, clearly enjoying the whole situation.

“Yeah,” Ben soldiered on, “You know, we were worried you were going to get in a fight or something.”

“I’m not a savage,” she said, now clearly offended.

“Ok sorry I just had to ask-”

“I merely took an eye from the fool,” she continued.

“Ok that’s what I thought,” Ben said quickly, quietly, under his breath.

“Who kept insisting he had the right to touch me. My body belongs to my Prince,”

“Please don’t say things like that.”

“And possibly Charles.”

“Please stop.”

“Who else!” Short Bus crowed, smiling the gigantic smile of a dumbass man-shark. That, at least, was how Ben was thinking of Short Bus at the moment. Red thought about it for a moment.

“That’s it,” she declared, continuing her completely shameless, totally confident walk. Ben decided to add ‘Have ‘The Talk’ with Red’ to his list of uncomfortable conversations he was going to avoid for as long as possible. “Prince Ben,” she said, “where are we going now?”

“We’re going to Anna’s house to regroup.”

“Ah, the child and her friends,” Red said. Ben decided not to touch Red’s opinion of Anna, mostly because it was about eighty percent in line with his own opinion of the girl’s group.

“Correct,” Ben said, “they’re expecting us.”

Earlier, during the trip to the Capital Crystal, Ben and Thirty-One had hammered out the details of what the next phase of their plan was. Once they found Red, all they needed to do was find ‘any store or business which sold or used mana crystals or magical gems of any kind,’ and that the staff would take care of the rest. That was what Thirty-One had said, anyways, and Ben was somewhat skeptical.

What Thirty-One had failed to mention was how to find a store or business which sold or used mana crystals or gems of any kind. Ben had been hoping to see like a sign or something, like a big stylized diamond hanging on a wooden sign. That clearly wasn’t how Solas worked. So, Ben did the next best thing.

“All right,” he said to his party, which was just Short Bus and Red, “you two just back me up in case things start going crazy. Also, don’t make things start going crazy. Please.”

They both nodded.

Ben then approached a random stranger who was going about his business, a Sunlet man, colored orange like Anna had been.

“Hey, excuse me, sorry to bother you,” Ben said, and the man immediately glared at Ben.

“Go back to the Outer Ring before I call the police,” the man snapped, and then quickened his pace to get away from Ben.

“Ok,” Ben said, “that didn’t work.”

After that, Ben just applied the tried and true strategy of RPG main characters everywhere; he began knocking on every door he came across, and approaching every person he passed. Politely, understand, he was polite, and he immediately backed off at the slightest hint of annoyance. Of which there was a lot. He wasn’t ever able to get to his actual question, and nearly everyone threatened to have him arrested.

Short Bus, who wasn’t even remotely shy about reading people’s minds and digging around for as much information as possible, had been the one to puzzle it out.

“It’s because you’re a human,” the man-shark had said, and Ben had realized the truth of it immediately.

“Well, fuck,” Ben said, finding somewhere to sit down and think. They were in a park, a beautiful park set on one of the gigantic and extremely stable leaves of the trees that Solas was growing on. The view was gorgeous, with benches and tables arranged around for people to sit and chat and eat. Ben was getting a lot of dirty looks, no doubt the primarily Sunlet population who were utilizing the park were unhappy to see him there.

“What now?” Red asked, clearly having never even spared a fuck for all the hostility directed at them. She was taking in the sights like someone who had never seen something so beautiful before, which was true in a literal sense. They were facing the vast elemetal wastes, a destroyed horizon of dangerous turbulence, flashes of color from distant explosions; it was, from as far away as they were, extremely interesting to watch. Like aliens hovering high above World War One and impersonally taking in the colors and sights without the context of violence.

“Hope we never have to go there,” Ben said, taking only a moment to think about how fucking dangerous that place looked. Like an endless, self-sustaining apocalypse-tier war. Short Bus stuck out a hand horizontal to the ground and tilted it side to side.

“Not never,” he said, “just not right now.”

“It reminds me of home,” Red said wistfully, her eyes telescoped out to an almost absurd degree. They were elongated out like three feet, making little micro movements as she followed something. Ben wondered if she was able to actually watch the drama unfold from this vast distance, and decided she probably could.

“What now?” Ben asked, finally addressing Red’s question, “Back to Mice Labs I guess, let those guys give us directions.”

“Yeah,” Short Bus said, sounding dejected, “that seems like a massive waste of time though.”

“Got any better ideas?” Ben asked.

“No,” Short Bus said, finally sitting down and relaxing. It still made him visibly uncomfortable to sit still, but he was making an effort. Ben looked up and saw two Sunlets walking towards him, both male.

“Oh great,” Ben said, then pre-empted them, “don’t worry, we were just leaving. Please don’t call the police.”

“Wait!”

“Wait?” Ben asked to himself.

“Hey, you’re a human, right?” the lead sunlet asked, and the other one stood slightly behind him, nodding his head.

“Yea- well that’s a complicated question. Technically I’m a Leap-”

“Yeah! A Leap-rechaun!” the sunlet said, sounding excited, “you can jump all over the place, right?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, then glanced over at Short Bus, who shrugged at Ben and indicated he should keep talking to them. Red wasn’t even paying remotely any attention to what was going on, still following whatever she was following in the elemental wastes.

“That’s so cool,” the sunlet said, “hey, so you guys were just walking around asking people for help, right?”

“Yeah, we’re just trying to meet up with our friend, Anna. We’re looking for a mana crystal store or something.”

“Anna?” the second sunlet asked, looking at his friend, “like, from Anna’s Coinpurse? The [Brawler]?”

“Yeah!” Ben said, getting excited, “you know her?” The Sunlets laughed.

“Uh, yeah. We know her. Which shop are you supposed to meet her at?”

“Any one of them I guess,” Ben said, “apparently the staff will get us to her house from there.”

“Dude what the fuck,” the second Sunlet said, then smacked his friend on the arm, the sound like two crystals cracking together, “we’ve got to help them.”

“Hey!” the first one said, “if we help you, think we could get a ride to Anna’s place? I’ve always wanted to see it.”

“Sure, I mean if it’s ok with her.”

“Great!”

With that, Ben and his party were, very excitedly, led to a nearby shop. Ben had no idea how they were able to figure out what it was supposed to be, but as soon as they walked through the door, he knew they were in the right place.

The place was loaded with mana crystals. Not like the kind he’d looted from the Citadel either, but weird, exotic looking ones in really funky, crazy shapes. They had swoops and ridges; they were tall and narrow; they had holes with smaller crystals floating inside of them; they were striped with multiple colors, or shifted from one color to another.

Each crystal sat inside of a glass display case, sitting by itself at about shoulder height. The shopkeeper immediately stood to greet them, then visibly dimmed in demeanor when he saw a couple of teenagers and a group of scruffy adventurers. One of whom was a human in a weird green outfit.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you all to either leave a deposit before you begin browsing, or ask you to vacate the premises-” the shopkeeper said, then looked more closely at the group. “Ah, pardon me,” he said, looking at Ben, “but are you by any chance Prince Ben?”

“Yes,” Ben said, and the two Sunlets who’d brought them here exchanged a look like they’d just hit the jackpot.

“Oh! I was told you would be nude,” he said, which really just rained on Ben’s parade, “please, come this way. I’m rather quite pleased you are here, Lady Anna promised a rather fetching bonus for whoever got the privilege of assisting you. As it turns out, it’s me!” the shopkeeper chortled to himself, and Ben was surprised the man didn’t follow up his last statement with something like, ‘I’m happy because I love money!’

“Lucky you!” Short Bus said, his tail coming dangerously close to knocking over display cases every time he turned.

“Ever hear the expression ‘Bull in a china shop?” Ben asked, and Short Bus turned to look at Ben, his tail very narrowly missing a glass case with a truly expensive and fragile looking mana crystal in it.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, just stop moving so much,” Ben said with a forced smile. The shopkeeper hadn’t noticed, he was too busy congratulating himself for being lucky.

“Let’s see, let’s see,” he said to himself, then produced a small drone from under his counter. “This should be adequate,” he continued, then gently tossed the drone into the air. It flew past Short Bus, who reflexively flinched in it’s direction with his jaws, like he wanted to just snap it right out of the air. Ben glared at him, because he was pretty sure the man-shark had just done it to get on his nerves. Short Bus confirmed it when he grinned at Ben, then made another sharp movement and barely avoided breaking something.

“You’re going to give me a fucking heart attack,” Ben said, doing his best to ignore Short Bus. Red, meanwhile, was examining the mana crystals with a fierce fascination.

“These are rather spectacular,” she said, her eyes totally dialed in on the crystal she was examining. It was a rather tense ten or so minutes while Ben prayed, literally prayed, that nobody did anything stupid; or broke anything; or started a fight; or stole anything (Frankie, who was in tune with Ben, halted his burglary for just this store, and only for the duration of Ben’s active prayer); or did anything stupid that would get them arrested again.

His prayers were answered. Hallelujah, because a very expensive flying vehicle landed in front of the store. A sunlet in very expensive clothes stepped inside and said;

“Prince Ben? Lady Anna is expecting you. Please, follow me.”