It was the beginning of school and, at first, Reia didn't really notice the gazes and the stares. Sometimes she could be super oblivious to those things.

Call her absent-minded, even call her a moron if you wanted, Reia really would just be in a completely different world from everybody else sometimes.

But, when a group of at least 15 students—boys and girls, clad in the bland black trademark school uniform that every student wore, but along with the purple bandannas on their arms and or thighs, which held an orange symbol in the shape of a flaming glass bottle at its center, she knew quite well what club these kids belonged to.

Yes, these kids were none other than the Unicorn Benders. And no, from what she heard, they had no plans on changing their club insignia.

All tough and hardened warriors, some even sporting stuffed unicorn horns on their foreheads.

And they typically weren't so hostile looking towards her—especially considering she's been in their clubroom before with their friend Maila—who happened to be a productive and long-term member of the Unicornbenders, who were typically tamer than the other clubs.

But, Maila wasn't present. The one who would usually vouch for her.

That was when she became consciously aware of the attention she had attracted from the events of yesterday—and truly, Reia for sure wasn't surprised or caught off guard.

It was the perfect time for her to speed away and pretend she was oblivious, so that's what she did.

She had just been walking through the halls with her head up looking up at the green dancing flames, and students who clearly were looking at her in either awe or hatred before quickly rushing away in whispers that went something like:

"Reia who?"

"Reia Welsh? isn't she clubless?"

Her skin grew goosebumps and she had to fight the urge to cover her face. multiple...indistinguishable voices.

"That's Reia Welsh."

"She's got a nice ass—OW, dude, What the hell was that for?!"

Thanks, but she’s heard enough of that in ‘compliment’ in her days.

"She can hear you, dummy!"

Yup.

Yeah, Reia could hear everything, and she didn't want to hear anything else, it was all bad energy.

"…stay away from her, unless you want to be completely fucked…"

"…I had a class with her last year. She always looks like someone spat in her breakfast cereal…"

Who the hell even says that?!

"She's gonna get us all spaghettified"

A day ago, her name was like that of a ghost.

And despite her actions, it seemed as if people were treating her as some sort of social outcast, the stares, the avoidance of the eyes—you would think Reia had hit Blanket.

But of course, the newspaper had painted her in a bad light. Yeah, because why would a newspaper ever correctly portray the news?

Reia wasn't just some random girl coming down the hall, now, people refused to keep her name off their tongues, and apparently, she'd done something seriously wrong.

And when she made it to class it was almost just as obvious. Now, Reia didn't normally talk to people like that—not like she probably should have, and maybe that made her a bit asocial, but today greeted her when she entered the class. Not that she had a personal relationship with anyone there and when she took her seat in the second to last row, she wasn't invisible—she was quite literally shunned, the feeling of isolation came like a meteorite being dragged to the surface by gravity.

What was the mayor change overnight that she missed?

She should have expected this outcome, but it just seemed rather unbelievable that what was happening was actually happening.

Personally, it probably didn't matter all that much, she came to history class to learn, and thankfully, she found the resolve to ignore it—they were never really her friends she figured.

Reia took the stairs from the first floor to the third.

The bell rang and…

She didn't even pay attention during class—to be honest, Dame Foster—a tiny almost peach-skinned woman whose smile radiated almost 24/7, and Reia wasn't exaggerating. But on the downside, she kept speaking on and on about a topic that had little to do with anything they'd learned in class prior.

The whiteboard had multiple notes across it, but Reia didn't particularly put any attention to it.

"When a kingdom's economy is…huh well, for a lack of a better word booming and this was due in part to a tremendous access to abundant resources such as iron and forkrite…"

What was Dame Foster talking about again?

"…some rulers may feel the need to claim territory that they believe their people deserved, especially with such a country so heavy on exports…"

It wasn't the homework or the topic they'd been told to brush over.

Their homework had been on criminals…specifically, some seven-foot-tall dude who they called Bento the Berserk, and he how was some druglord who invaded the kingdom's capital a little over a decade ago; what Dame Foster was talking about seemed to be a current event.

"…well, this abundance in resources lead to a dangerous nationalistic zeal, which compelled the Emporer of the Neitherian Empire and now we are living through what's being coined the Neitherian expansive offensive."

Though she did remember seeing a headline about an invasion yesterday, it just didn't click that it would come up in class and that Dame Foster would dedicate time to it.

It was useless information about two distant nations and Reia opted to worry more about writing down notes and telling Scott Markus sitting at the desk directly in front of her to move his head for the nth time.

And most of the class was uneventful.

Oh, and what she was going to do about this Purple Monkey situation. She could practically feel all the students' uneasiness, and the authoritative grip the Purple Monkeys had on their very actions—which all, of course, went unnoticed by Dame Foster.

Even the crumpled-up ball of paper that pelted the back of her head.

"Ow."

She turned around, but not a single soul admitted to tossing the ball at her—and so she just got up and tossed it in the trash across the room.

There were only four people in the back of the class.

Allen Fisher

Lancy-lyn Naruk

Graham Alden.

Caroline Rivers.

At first, she didn't know who did it, so Reia was willing to pretend it never happened, so she sat back down.

But when she was pelted with another crumpled-up paper ball, yet again, she felt the urge to glare at the four in the back, until she noticed penmanship and made out a sentence.

DON'T THIS THROW OUT!

Oh–okay, sure mysterious note...

So there was only one thing to do with that said and she opened the crumpled piece of paper.

This is the third letter I'm freaking writing to you, dude, the first one was definitely my fault because I chucked that bitch right out the window. Don't ask what spell I used or how I managed this, okay? Anyways, a bunch of kids out here don't like what you did because they're scared it'll plummet their positions on the totem pole. You're clubless too, so I'm just guessing we don't care, but like naturally this makes us all their enemy. So I for real want to help you out. They're going to cast a spell that's going to dump a mud cloud on you after you leave class today. Yeah, I know it's the best they can do. I need you to take the umbrella under my desk as a token of good faith.

Yours truly,

Caroline.

Caroline?

Caroline Rivers?

Granddaughter of the school's dean, dean Dean Rivers. Yes, that was his name, don't be mean.

The small curvy girl with the sun-bleached yellow hair, yeah, the blonde one who sat in the class corner with her bangs coming just past her eyebrows.

Umbrella?

When Reia turned around once again Caroline kept her eyes focused on Dame Foster, only twitching a finger in response to Reia's constant movements, but there yeah, there was a purple and black Umbrella laid on the book rest under her desk.

MUD?

Were they really going to dump mud on her? Interesting choice of magic…

That was just so stupid and childish, she forgot she was in a school full of deadly and magically sensitive teenagers—keyword though, they were still teenagers. Teenagers with a twisted moral compass...

And, they were still kids and she wouldn't put it past her peers being dumb, sadistic, and immature. But at the same time, did she heed her warning—because that in itself could be a trap—was the umbrella going to explode in her face the moment she opened it?

Though at the same time, if she just ignored that warning and mud seriously does drop on her, they would need an entire squad of masters to pull Reia off those responsible.

Paranoid?

Yeah, dude, Perhaps…

At the same time who was Reia to just disregard some helpful stranger's aid?

On one end if Reia opened the umbrella the second worst thing that would happen was that Reia would look like all the coffee was really getting to her. On the other end if she didn't take up that advice she would need buckets of shampoo and oils…

So when the time came, when class finally ended, Reia sat in her seat for longer than normal, allowing everyone to rush up from their seat, her heart jumping as she waited—waiting to see what Caroline needed from her.

But her seat was empty, nothing but the umbrella at the bookrest of the desk.

Reia took the umbrella and looked at it.

What did she have to lose?

She waited until the class was empty and everyone had taken their leave.

With that said she took it with her and exited, flipping the switch and extending the umbrella out in one motion, immediately it covered her as she exited.

Immediately, a brown cloud morphed as soon as Reia exited the class, and just as Caroline had prophesied a brown sludge of mud fell from said cloud hitting the umbrella and smashing into the floor with a filthy mush sound.

There was a sigh of relief and then she felt absolutely furious.

Did someone wait for her to leave and then cast a spell?

Or did they do it beforehand and then was it triggered when she left the classroom?

The note did say they were going to cast a spell.

And she knew exactly who was responsible.

All eyes went to Reia, though everyone could sort of gauge what occurred. The absolute ridiculousness of it had people rubbing their eyes.

Even Reia stared down at the mud blinking over and over again before she just stomped afoot.

She knew exactly who was responsible, and it only fueled her suppressed rage.

"Oooh, you used the Umbrella. I knew you weren't as stupid as everyone was saying you were."

A voice came from behind and when Reia turned she came face to face with the smaller form of Ms. Rivers—AKA Caroline to be exact, looking up at Reia with a cherry lollipop in her mouth, her red lipstick visible under the fire above. Dark red hair, to match.

"Everyone?" That left Reia a little speechless.

"Thought they were right after you tossed the first message in the can." she sort of just tossed the lollipop on the ground…yeah, she littered.

"I thought it was a little sus" Reia's hand fell to her waist and she looked Caroline right in her eyes, "I mean…Why would anyone want to help me?"

Well, a lot of people would want to help Caroline for being related to the head dean, but at the same time, in her own right, Caroline was a powerful knight that many clubs would like to have as an asset. Unfortunately, as long as Reia has heard of Caroline Rives, Reia had never known or heard of her being a part of a club.

"I mean, someone clubless and lonely...might want to ." Caroline blinked at the speed of a woodpecker's peck.

Clubless and alone?

Did she just right out admit to Reia that she was lonely? A cry for help?

But that shouldn't have been the case. Why did she choose to be lonely?

"What? You're master Rivers' granddaughter, clubs would fight wars over having you on their side!"

The head dean's granddaughter at that.

"Screw that! My heritage means spat, I hate coming riding off of that! And I don't want to join those idiots, they just want someone strong and it all stems back to people just wanting to be better than their actual peers." Caroline bit her own lip hard, but didn't seem bothered "Nope, to hell if I'll let them use me for status! I hate what goes on in this school, I hate that some of my friends get their daggers stolen and skip lunch so they don't get freaking levitated and glued to the damn ceiling!"

Ah, like so many others.

"Treat others as you would like to be treated—I respect that.", Reia said.

"Keep your hands and…spells to your-damn-selves is what I'm saying." Caroline declared with a proud playful salute.

The photomancer couldn't agree more, and the happy feeling that surged through her when she realized others agreed with her, she simply loved it!

Reia stepped over the mound of mud, a few sentinels and teachers looked over at them with a confused expression, but not a single one made to question who was responsible for the attack.

Which brought her back to the main issue.

With a quick blink, she closed the umbrella and immediately handed it back.

"You keep it.", Caroline said, crossing her feet.

Well, Reia would probably just end up tossing it.

Anyways, she got right into the nitty-gritty "How'd you know they were going to try that after class?"

"They were talking about it on their way to class—I happened to hear them, they weren't all that subtle really—and I have to say Reia, what I heard you did yesterday, girl, I have to say, you've got some balls." Then Caroline paused, like her mind had dropped what she was about to say, gestured for Reia to follow her down the hall, and only when Reia awkwardly caught up to her Caroline continued "Beating Brick senseless just because he bumped you? Not saying the clown didn't deserve it and had I been in your situation, I'd probably do the same..."

Bumped? And Reia didn't just beat him senseless!

"I didn't beat him senseless because he bumped me, I fought him because he was trying to squeeze the juice out of my friend!"

"Squeeze the juice out of your friend?" Caroline blew air through her teeth "So, you're not much like them, that's good."

"What, you thought I was like them?"

She didn't know whether to be offended or now…so she just remained neither.

"Yeah…I'm guilty of reading and believing the Daily-Decorous." Caroline still gave Reia a riddled look "You're gonna tell me you beat Brick senseless for being an idiot and then when he came back to reclaim his honor you stabbed—freaking stabbed him with an 800-degree photon blade right in front of his big brother? Man I mean, I see your approach—be so cruel that most will be scared to upright approach you, but—" but it looked like Caroline didn't know how to finish her words.

Reclaim his honor?

Yeah… that's technically what he tried…in the most arrogant way possible, Brick made himself look worse than he already did.

So yes! Reia did in fact do that—but of course, along with the truth, the newspaper added some extra unfactual and unnecessary toppings of spicy defamation.

"…He was beating on my friend—Blanket—Blanket's a nice guy, into his books, though he's just slightly below Decorous' average, as far as skill goes. Naturally, Brick's wailing on him, his freaking magic chain thingy was like constricting him so-so tight, I thought his eyes would pop from his sockets—and like eight people walked by and did nothing. That doesn't sound normal, it's not normal to me! I wasn't going to let myself be the ninth." Looking to her side Reia raised both her hands like this was the obvious answer

"Normal? No, no that's not normal, my friends tell similar stories, but they're not so…strong."

"Then we're on the same page—I want to do something about it, we have to follow the code. In this aspect, there's no room for interpretation."

She needed to be like that knight.

"I want to make Decorous safe for my friends—Just so we can sit, eat…talk, and read comics without someone getting levitated! Just until graduation then we'll start making some good pay."

And with that Reia put her hand out and Caroline grabbed it firmly and shook.

And that's when it hit her.

"Me too, and my two friends don't like the way the school is either." she let go of Caroline's hand. "It was the Purple Monkeys, was it?"

But surprisingly Caroline shook her head from side to side "Sure, you pissed off the purple monkeys, but they're not the only clubs you've pissed off." Then the blonde looked down at her feet as if she were telling Reia something she felt she shouldn't have even known, "There's a lot of stuff that changed overnight, a lot of things that put a sour taste in a bunch of the mouths of some of the elites."

"Who? I just want to know who literally tried to spill mud on me?"

"Oh…the Unicorn benders."

That made Reia take a step back.

Was that why they were glaring at her?

"No, that's impossible, my friend Maila's part of that club—I've eaten pizza with their entire cabinet before—"

But they did look at her weirdly earlier.

"I told you, things changed literally overnight, and keep it low because people are really glaring you down, sheesh."

So the duo put more pep in their step and Reia calmed herself.

"I didn't slight them—how could me, hitting one of their competitors, rub them wrong?"

They turned a corner, leading to the magical affinity hall, where the doors did not rely on hinges or walls or really anything, instead, these doors simply told both gravity and the rest of the law of physics: no.

But this was simply because of the magic used to keep the door enchanted, if one were to open the floating door that seemed to lead nowhere of course they would find a classroom.

But not yet.

Reia's class was just down the hall, 243B.

So she slowed and turned to face Caroline who alright had a finger on Reia's nose before Reia could ever reply. "Because Reia Welsh, you're not considering one, crucial and loud fact. You've embarrassed the name and symbol of the purple monkey, let's just say now all of their panties are stuck in a knot and they've ceased and canceled all their 'deliveries' Reia could only blink and stare with slightly parted lips.

The static juice, huh?

"So, how is that my fault?! How do you know all this, and why am I the last to always find out?!

"Well, it's not a secret or anything—people are just talking—look, a drug that's usually easy to get around here suddenly has a shortage because of one lady photomancer. People are pissed."

"But I didn't do anything!"

"You–you didn't tear up their clubroom and haul all their Static Juice into the incinerator?"

"No!"

"No? That's what the paper said. Shit, that's what I would've done."

"Well I didn't, didn't have the chance and that never even crossed my mind." Reia pouted a bit, thinking over all the bs that was coming her way and everything she herself caused—the issues, were they worth it?

Of course, they were!

Her belief wouldn't be shaken that easily.

She was going to be like the faceless knight!

"Damn, are you being serious? I thought you were on some badass heroic trip."

"No, I'm just trying to get people to follow the bare minimum of the code—just do unto others as you'd do to yourself. Automatically that exempts this club hierarchy or whatever!"

"So, the solution is very simple. We have to cut everyone down before they get you—and since I'm not working with you, that means us!"

"Well, I–don't want to cut anyone down unless it's necessary. But if they're in my way—"

"They'll be sending people after you, it's gonna make your studies that much harder." Caroline exaggerated an explosion with her arms to show how much harder it'd be.

It only made Reia raise her eyebrows, she didn't want to seem like the aggressor, if anything she wanted to show that the story in the paper was false.

Then Caroline went on "You haven't seen what they printed about you this morning, have you?"

They stopped, right before Reia's classroom allowing students to brush them by.

"No, but I'll go ahead and guess that everyone else has?"

"You won the match, but everyone's rubbing Brick's shoulders and sympathizing with him like he didn't just suffer a defeat."

"I'm not surprised. This school is ass-backwards, another four months is gonna feel like forever. But, yeah, I'll be that gal, I'll give some bullies a taste of their own medicine" Reia said, and she was internally rolling her eyes at how corny she sounded.

"That's why I like what you're doing." She brought Reia in close, gripping Reia by the collar and sending Reia looking all over in confusion then Caroline whispered "They'll be waiting for you after—I suggest you—"

Atlas, Caroline never finished, instead, a black drumstick pierced the atmosphere, engulfed in some enhancing green energy, Reia only heard the high pitch zip through the air before she and Caroline ducked.

The single drumstick twirled around back to their attack like a boomerang, a brunette with curly hair that barely rose above her head an inch, there was a purple monkey symbol wrapped around her arm.

"Or…they'll just straight-up attack us!" Caroline was already on her feet, a gust emanating from her.

"Unless you associate yourself with Welsh over here, then ma'am you have nothing to worry about. I'm only here to denounce her." The attacker pointed a drumstick at Reia a distance away.

For a moment, Reia didn't recognize the face, until she realized it was that girl who had been glaring at her during Brick's battle.

"Funny, Reia here is the new leader of our super awesome club—so of course, I'm associated with her!"

Huh? New club?

Reia gave Caroline the most perplexed expression.

Nonetheless, Reia played along.

"You've formed your own club? Cute." Though the girl's voice remained impassive, the fake news did seem to surprise her.

"Yeah and if you wanna piss me off some more, try throwing that shit at me again!" Caroline said.

"Enough chit-chat! The Purple Monkeys sent you, huh? Brick couldn't take his loss with honor and decency? So he and his brother sent one of his goons. " Reia was already channeling her mana.

"What do you know of honor and decency? I just learned who you were yesterday—and I must say I'm unimpressed with the impact you've had on this school these past years—at least Brick competes against other schools for the glory of Decorous. What have you done? Have you added worth to our name? What about you Caroline?"

"Me? When I graduate I'll become a general—no, a master knight, greater than my own grandfather, I don't care about Decorous' honor or whatever these old people indoctrinated you with. Yeah, none of it will freaking matter to you in another year! We won't even be here!"

The short-haired brunette then replied "When I graduate, I'm going to build an army and take back my former village. I don't care if it won't matter to me later, it'll bring honor for generations of knights to come. Decorous is a great school, and that's because of the structure we've always had in place. That's enough for me to wear this club symbol with pride, I serve strong and honorable peers in the Purple Monkeys!"

–What the hell did they even do besides bully people though? Sure, they fought other knight academies for dominance and sport, but—

That had Caroline shrugging, shaking her head, and slowly approaching the attacker all at the same time "You're a lost cause, girl, and you super-fucked up when you threw your shitty musical instrument at me! Why is that your weapon anyway? You know what? Let's just get to fighting so I can blow you away!"

"Sounds like this is my fight, Caroline, sorry to say, but if she wants to duck it out, I'm game. Kayo and Brick want someone else to fight their battles, I understand!" Reia mocked.

But the girl with the purple monkeys just gave Reia this scowl and glare, like the same glare she gave her after Reia defeated Brick."Reia Welsh…you are so mistaken as to what's happening right now.

"Not only her…" a masculine voice said, only for Reia to turn and see two guys moving in closer beside one another, they too were sporting the symbol of the purple monkeys.

Again, the two guys were both easily the tallest people in the school, sitting somewhere between 6'5-6'8, they looked like twins and the only way she could tell them apart was the fact that one wore a utility belt and had his feet off the ground levitating and the other simply walked.

Had she seen them in the halls before?

No, wait! The super tall twins who had looked at her right after she had whooped Brick's tail! The two Purple Monkeys, were giants compared to her.

Now, the one levitating said, "We're here with orders from the Vice President—The Photonmancer and all associated with her are to be stomped on by our size 18s." He lifted a huge foot for emphasis and yeah, Reia really couldn't authenticate whether those were size 18s or not, but both the twin's feet were definitely enormous. "We're not to stop 'til we draw blood..at our discretion." This was said with so much pride.

"Yeah, clubless girl...just give up and make it easy, we're not Brick." the other one said.

Size 18? Both of them?

Yeah, why would anyone want to be kicked by those?

Then the girl spoke "Wow, we're quite rude aren't we, we didn't introduce ourselves. My name is Akika, third-year student and judge from the great Purple Monkey." As shown by the bandana on her right bicep. "These two are the two judges who precede me, in case you were not aware. Well, we're here to judge you on the spot."

"We're the Mac brothers. Dennis Mac and Terrance Mac." Dennis pointed to himself first, then his Terrance "We're going to remind you exactly where you belong, Photomancer, you've pissed off VP Kayo."

And of course, they were referring to Reia.

She just didn't understand why he emphasized Photonmancer like that—she got it, it was sort of a rare ability

Before she could even respond, the change in the atmosphere told her this wasn't going to be a normal fight, the late bell rang, two figures appeared behind her faster than she had anticipated and Reia froze.

Pause.

It only lasted a single moment.

"What're you doing Reia, stop horsing around, they're trying to jump you!" Caroline scolded, a swirl of wind overtook the hallways, uptaking papers and any students not powerful or fast enough to get out of the way. Then Caroline sent a special wave of concentrated air at Akika, who was able to sidestep and watch the air devastate a distant wall and pointed two drumsticks in Caroline's direction "Oh, so I'll fight you."

How much longer would the instructors ignore them?

Tsk, she was already moving when two roundhouse kicks came from both the twins individually.

Swish!

She ducked, and rolled two feet away leaving the mac brothers hit nothing but air, still sending a shockwave into the air. Their feet were engulfed in blue flames when they finished and when everything calmed it immediately extinguished itself.

So, they were using Super-strength enhancing magic, but at a much higher scale than the average knight.

–So, they were brawlers. She always wondered why they only used their legs.

Most knights used magic to enhance their strength, but those with a particular affinity to strength magic, such as Reia's friend, Maila, could use it on a sum much greater than the average knight, this seemed to be the case with the Mac brothers.

They had uncanny strength, she could see that. Meaning, at no point in time could she let them land a kick on her.

Reia was able to recover, summon light to her hand and mold it into a weapon, twirling it in her hand as she prepared for another fight.

The hallway was clear.

They approached.

Reia sized them all up, looking at the Mac brothers and Akika who was facing off against Caroline, spinning her drumsticks with both hands fast like wheels on a car. Caroline winked and then all her attention went to Akika

"Two versus one?"

How was that even remotely fair?

Still… Reia held her sword out, pacing in a circle with the Mac brothers doing the same, almost doing this slow rhythmic pacing—as if they were dancing gauging an opening.

With a delayed reply, both the Mac brothers shrugged, and only Dennis replied, literally leaning over to look down at her "Sounds like you are a problem."

The ground shook and like two supersonic moving blurs the Mac brothers attacked, only using their huge feet, sending another kick her way and forcing Reia to backflip a few feet away, before conjuring a ball of light and tossing it at them.

DOOF!

It instead hit the wall when they evaded the attack, and Reia was forced to block the two downwards stomps of flame engulfed feet with her sword, energy canceling out energy. She looked up just in time to watch the twiddle of a dagger between one of their hands.

Shit! Shit!

Before they could make contact Reia rolled away, a huge flurry of storm sized wind up taking the hallway—Caroline was holding out her fingers—like a kid would do pretending to hold a revolver, and with it, she fired off concentrated air bullets, which were either evaded by Akika or blocked by her drumstick.

Before Reia even knew what was going on, the Mac brothers were back on her, and just when she blocked an up kick from Dennis, only to have Terrance land a clean kick right into her right rib, it was like getting hit by a steroid pumped wildebeest, it sent her crying to the heavens, biting her tongue to hold back her voice.

But it hurt…There was no denying that.

All the air in her lungs escaped through the gaps in her teeth.

Did she hear a rib crack?

"Ah, I'm glad you held your voice. Nobody's trying to hear that shit this early, anyway." This was Dennis' way of taunting her. "C'mon, Photomancers are supposed to be super strong, I would know."

Stand! She needed to stay on her feet!

Reia attempted to stand and that's when Dennis swiped her jaw with a roundhouse and unfortunately, sent her flat on her back with an oof, Reia began to see flashing stars and red liquid dripped down her lip and onto the floor.

Sometimes fights would break out, and for whatever amount of time, the staff would let them play out.

It was like, someone took a fire extinguisher and pitched the damn thing straight at her face, full force.

She kept her sword gripped, the photons in her hand remained in constant static and swirling motion, but she couldn't move, her jaw was heavy, her vision a bit blurred, and she shivering but it wasn't cold.

That hit to the stomach beat any cramp!

She couldn't let them do this to her!

But how?

They were literally jumping her…two on one.

Where was the honor in that?

Caroline was preoccupied with the girl who had somehow begun to duplicate her drumsticks, kicking things up a notch and having about eight flying drumsticks, that came back to Akika like bees back to a nest.

Regret immediately came like a sour taste in her mouth.

What if she had just minded her business?

And that's when another kick lashed her, right into her stomach, and she dropped to the ground heaving up saliva and blood, holding her stomach and just thinking about how absolutely great this pain was.

All Reia could think about was getting back on her feet and throwing everything she had. As the two mac brothers closed in on her, she realized this was where they would start stomping on her with their size 18s.

Oh, nice.

TBC...

*>X<*