Getting the ungrateful pest and their sore selves out of the library was just as much of a chore as their way in. Hans didn’t seem to mind the ‘damsel’s attitude, but both Mary and Margaret were periodically sending her glares every few dozen yards or so. And, well, their cargo didn’t particularly make it easy not to.

“I will have you know, that the last team Anthony sent for me had thought about bringing a proper palanquin on the trip,” the rat said in her squeaky voice. The fat rodent stuffed into an unnecessarily expensive piece of cloth was currently being pulled on a sledge, hastily put together from a few tomes of an encyclopedia that no one would miss, and a piece of string Mary wanted to strangle their rescuee with.

“If you want, we can drive you back where we found you,” Mary spat through gritted teeth.

“Do not be ridiculous,” the annoying brat puffed, raising her nose so high that Mary wouldn’t be surprised if it somehow scrapped over the old ceiling. Maybe the pest would inhale a spider on accident… eh, dreams…. “I am just lecturing you for the future, to save your next clients from such a horrible experience.”

“Maybe we should give you some really bad experience to put things into perspective,” Mary murmured.

“What did you say?”

“Honey,” Margaret said to Mary, who wisely chose to ignore the rodent’s question, “maybe you should cool down a bit? Our guest may be a poor excuse for a spoiled third-category vermin noble-”

“HEY!”

“-but it doesn’t mean we should be any less professional about it, now, does it?”

“You know, it’s almost a shame we’ll have to give her away. You fit together so nicely…,” Hans called to them from the front, where he was making sure no danger was going to invite them to the second round of its favourite game of ‘how to kill a bunch of teenagers’. The book-filled walls weren’t much less creepy, unfortunately - killing the screaming duck made things a bit better, but Mary missed the sunlight as if she’d been on a half-a-year-long submarine secret mission.

“Oh, and there was that one time, where the party managed to get their hands on not one, but two full-sized fans,” the vermin ranted on. “Yes, yes, the youth these days….”

Hmm… they were probably late for dinner by now. Mary couldn’t help but wonder how would a rat-meat shish kebab taste. Some heroes she read about during her innocent days at the orphanage tried it sooner or later - and if some of the novels were indeed, at least partially rooted in reality, she started to suspect that there were more reasons to it than hunger alone…

At least the next day, she could sleep till noon. Or at least, that’s what Mary thought - the others told her that they had no lessons planned. So when Margaret shook her awake, Mary was caught completely off-guard. The movements of lips situated on the face hovering above her own suggested that the incoherent mumbles she heard were, in fact, talking.

“...what?” She tried shaking her head to bring herself closer to the world of the awakened. It wasn’t particularly efficient at that, but it surely made her hair even more of a mess. Great.

“What’s wrong with you, honey?” the fully clothed girl - well, if you could ever call Margaret that... - asked. “We have to be in the main audience hall in 10 minutes!”

That, on the other hand, was both extremely efficient and had less tragic effects on Mary’s hair.

“What? What happened?”

“You don’t know?” Margaret asked. “I thought everyone knew!”

Mary rose hastily and tried to get herself at least somehow presentable. Well, maybe presentable was a strong word… Human enough that no one would try to call Ghostbusters on her? Yeah, that’d be closer to the truth…

They barely made it in time. Mary was puffing so loudly that she missed the first couple of words from the speech and gathered quite a few glares from her neighbours - she even got an impression of one from Mossie above her shoulder, which was quite a feat from a saucer that had perfectly static reflectors for ‘eyes’. Come to think of it, maybe she should paint hair on its top for a better effect. Hm... Did Mossie like pink?

Thankfully, even at her not as impressive height, Mary towered over most of the crowd - she sometimes forgot how young most of the students were. The audience hall was also modelled slightly after the shape of ancient greek theatre, although with a very, very gentle slope. It didn’t serve its function too well, but well - it was trying, at least.

“... and so, I stand before you, asking for your help.” She finally managed to make out. She started, as she recognised that voice - it belonged to one of the party leaders she met at her selection ceremony. Sure enough, she recognised a pale boy standing at his left… Paolo, was that right? Wow, it felt like ages since that day… And, of course, to the right, there was the creep, shining flashlights under closed eyelids. She shivered at the memory of the twin dark abysses where his eyes should have been... Yeah, come to think of it, standing at the edge of the crowd suddenly seemed worth coughing her lungs out.

“So let me ask - are you with me?” the boy shouted, raising his sword to the ceiling, and Mary snapped back to the present. Oh, right, she was supposed to listen.

“Yes!” Margaret raised both her voice and fist next to her, and soon Mary mirrored her under the glare the girl sent her direction. She seemed to be getting more and more of those these days… well, the last two days, actually, since she only knew her… three days? Everything was happening so fast recently.

“I asked, are you with me?” The boy repeated, apparently not content with the initial response.

“YES!” the crowd shouted, and this time Mary managed to be punctual for once. Not everyone joined in on the shout, though. There was still a considerable group of heroes who kept their arms down - some of which seemed sad, others’ expressions seemed torn apart - but there were a few raised eyebrows and twisted smirks present as well.

“Then I say - we march at dusk!” the boy finished and hopped off the podium, followed by the rest of his party. Mary noticed a single shining eye appear above the creep, like the shiny bait of an angler fish lighting the way before him.

“Come on,” Margaret nudged her. “We need to find Hans and prepare for the battle. You haven’t collected your proper armour yet, have you, honey?”

Great, so what had she gotten herself into again?