“What is this…” groaned Eris, who was looking through empty money pouches. The whole group was staying in Aru’s hideout. “YOU THREW AWAY ALL MONEY WE HAD FOR THIS DUMBASS?!”

“Well, aristocrats’ clothes aren’t cheap” Kyoko said.

“BUT THAT WAS A MOUNTAIN OF MONEY!” she hissed out her answer, then snatched the suit that was bought for Lorenzo. It had a velvety texture, and was of a color of a nut, with some darker brown tones. It looked a bit similar to the boy’s shirt, since it was also plaided. They also bought for him shoes, a tie and a white button-up shirt to wear under his jacket, also soft to touch. “Amazing, I don’t remember ever touching material like this…”

“Ah, so you like it after all?” Edward asked with an obvious smile.

“Shut up, you trash, or I’ll cut off your tongue” she answered. “But you didn’t have to pay so much for something that Lorenzo will wear only once!”

“We have to prepare the best we can” Kyoko said again. “Furthermore, if it’ll stay in mint condition, we can return it.”

“You believe it?” she giggled meanly. “Lorenzo will mess up, as always.”

“No, I won’t!” he denied suddenly. “After all, we still need to pay for food, so I have to take care of it to return it!”

“BECAUSE YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT EATING! I KNOW YOU, YOU ASS!”

Then something hit Eris’ head. The furious blackhead turned around. She saw Ivory, who was holding a stick of impressive length.

“You can’t talk to Lorenzo like this!” she said with a childish, unhappy face, and then stepped in front of Lorenzo to shield him, ineffectively, since she was very small in comparison to him.

“You won’t be telling what I can or can’t do!” Eris screeched out, similarly childishly.

“SILENCE!” it was Aru who shouted out this time. “Rather than scream at each other, it’s better if we start with our plan. Lorenzo, dress up.”

The red-haired girl gave him his clothes. He looked at them, then at the whole group, and smiled shyly. Everyone understood what he meant, so they turned around, so he could change. Lorenzo first unbuttoned his shirt, took it off and elegantly folded it. Suddenly he felt a bit uneasy. He saw with a corner of his eye Ivory peeping at him with a meaningful smile, but after a while she quickly looked away. The fox’s face became fully red, he felt embarrassed, but at the same time, for some reason, he also felt quite nice…

When he finished changing, he let them turn around again. Everyone reacted very enthusiastically when they saw him, the suit suited him well.

“Well, I gotta say that you look good” Eris commented positively, surprising everyone. “But just try damaging it, and I promise you that I will kill you.”

“Eris, is your period blood leaking, making you so nasty all the time?” asked Edward with a mean smile. The black-haired girl looked at him with eyes of a murderous beast.

~

For now, everything was going according to the plan – Ivory took Lorenzo to the meeting place of aristocratic and wealthy people, and the rest of the group stayed in Aru’s hideout. They decided to wait there, so the cannibal’s pegasus wouldn’t sniff out the seal, or notice the high number of people present. The fox yielded to his peers’ requests and started sipping drinks with them. Fortunately, Lorenzo was known for „holding his drink” well, so he wasn’t afraid of losing self-control, like Edward did before. It seemed like the meeting would never end, but finally the guests went home. They were lucky that such parties were an everyday occurrence in Yodiara, but now they had to act carefully. Ivory turned into a raven, sat on a tall tree and observed. Lorenzo started thinking if Ivory might be a weapon, but in the end decided that she was simply using a transformation spell, which was much more probable – her scythe was made up of magic, and not of soul energy, like his gun, or Kyoko’s sword.

Lorenzo was loitering by the park’s trees. Ivory took him here, hoping that their cannibal would show up soon. The brown-haired boy acted as if he was going in the town’s direction, but tried not to go too far from Ivory’s position. She was concealing her presence and mana, after all. Suddenly, Lorenzo heard rustling, he was breathless, and his heart skipped a beat. He started feeling stuffy, so he loosened his tie a bit. Although he was scared, he kept going forward, and tried to act as naturally as possible. Ivory spread her wings slightly and noiselessly began gliding between branches of different trees. Lorenzo was stepping slowly, his heart was beating very fast, and his legs began to shake a bit. He took a deep breath, but felt something preying on him. It was a blessing in an awful disguise. Then he heard loud neighing, he turned into his fox form and quickly started running, but Karia was as fast as he was.

“Get him, Karia!” shouted out Catherine, who was holding her pet’s neck tightly. The panicked Lorenzo hid behind some trees, but the pegasus was able to sniff him out. Ivory jumped down and hit the ground like a thunder, took off the transformation spell off herself, and together with the now fully formed scythe in her hand, charged at her enemies. The pegasus dodged by flying upwards, and Ivory with the tip of her blade hit the ground.

‘She’s using her wings’ thought the huntress. ‘Damn it, she was able to regenerate them so quickly after breaking them?!’

She stopped on the ground, jumped in fox Lorenzo’s direction and lifted him up using magic.

“We need to create distance” she said with a commanding tone and started running. She was holding Lorenzo in a cloud of magic in front of her, so as not to endanger him. In her hands, other than focusing the magic, she was holding her scythe, ready to fight. Pegasus, together with Catherine, started charging at them. Lorenzo then understood what was happening.

“Ivory! You can use me! I’ll be much more effective than a scythe in a long-distance battle!”

Ivory nodded, dispersed the scythe, and Lorenzo turned into a handgun. Ivory took the magic cloud closer to herself and then let it go, letting it freely fall into her hand. With a strong jump, supported by magic focused in her shoes’ heels, she started shooting in the pegasus’ direction. It was dodging the bullets quite skillfully. Karia flew upwards and kicked her with her hooves. Ivory fell, rolled over the ground and hit a tree with her body. She quickly recovered, however, and jumped even higher, still supporting her body with magic. She hid behind a large tree, from behind which, from time to time, she peeked out to track down her enemy.

“Now you’re the one running from us?” Catherine laughed disgustingly. Ivory was breathing hard, she suffered a few injuries.

“Are you alright?!” asked Lorenzo. The huntress slid her hand over his gun form, and then brought the gun’s side closer to her face. She kissed it shyly. Lorenzo stayed silent.

“It’s alright. I fought worse battles” she said, fully serious. “But I’ll be needing your help this time, dearest…”