Once Mercy hopped back through the window, she, Jon, and Hector casually walked downstairs.

Mallory saw them come down and approached them excitedly.

“How’d you like that!” he said. “Mallory special.”

“Mallory and Tallow special,” Mercy said. “She started the spell, and she won’t let you forget that.”

“Actually,” Mallory said, “she probably will, seeing as embarrassed-”

“He’s gone,” Hector said, grumpily.

“You mean, like dead, right?” Mallory asked. “I mean, we don’t like to kill people, but it’s a sorry case if-”

“Disappeared,” Mercy added.

“Aw damn.” Mallory dropped his arms in disappointment. “The spell didn’t get him? At least we seemed to have gotten the bulk of the thieves without him. He seemed pretty strong.”

“It’s whatever,” Hector said, walking to the front door. “We don’t need to worry about him. He’s not our mission. We just need to gather everything up and-”

“Hector, no!” Mercy said, reaching out.

Hector opened the door and was met with a tackle from a very large object. Jon was just able to make out that it was a man in bright yellow armor who had run into Hector.

The door closed behind the yellow armored man as he made a beeline to the back door, and, by extension, Mallory.

Mallory could barely react before he was caught in the path of the dash as well. He and Hector were carried into the back door, which broke into pieces as the yellow armored man slammed them into it went on outside. They all disappeared beyond the house.

Jon was both disturbed and mildly astonished. He wished for his friend's safety, but nothing he could think of could match the quirkiness of what he just witnessed.

“Mercenaries!” Mercy extended her blade and turned angrily to the front door, readying her blade. “He must have waited it out before sending them in!”

The front door was opened by Ultimare, who had obviously taken a lot of damage from the spell. His normally neat and straightened hair was disheveled beyond belief, and his robe was dirtied, torn, and wrinkled, with a giant tear in the middle from Mercy’s piercing.

“Your display of strength is pathetic,” Ultimare said simply. “You’re making this-”

Mercy yelled and charged to the man, her energy blade activated and raised over her head.

Ulitmare reached up and an invisible hand caught her by the throat, slowly lifting her into the air.

Jon tried to shoot him, but the energy was deflected. No surprise there.

Stuff. Jon leaped behind a nearby chair. He fired, sending it across the room.

Ultimare waved his free hand, destroying the chair in mid-air. However, the pieces of debris still sailed through and forced him to cover his face.

Mercy tossed her black tool with a flick of her writs.

It landed in front of the mage.

There was an explosion of light, Ulitmare closing his eyes and losing concentration.

Mercy didn’t land, instead choosing to use an air dash to push herself directly to the ceiling from where she was being held.

She caught herself on the ceiling with her hands and immediately pushed off, sending herself directly into Ultimare, landing on him with her feet and sending both of them outside the front door.

Aw… Jon couldn’t see what was happening outside on either end of the house. He turned back and forth trying to decide which way to go.

He didn't wave to wait long for an answer, as Tallow ran down the stairs and rushed to the front door, slamming it shut. She threw back along the wall next to it and waited.

“Incoming!” she yelled.

Jon braced himself, gun down at his hip.

He heard massive stomping outside as if there was a stampede. Jon assumed it was another man in armor.

He moved slightly to the side, so as not to be in the way of another tackle.

The stomping got closer and closer until finally Tallow quickly threw the door open and twisted her body hard, forcing her clawed arm out of it’s sling and extended across the open door.

She clotheslined the charging man, catching him by the neck and making him flip underneath her arm.

Due to his heavy momentum when he landed on his side he was carried all the way across the floor, breaking everything in his path until he crashed into the side of the house.

At first, Jon thought that the man was wearing clothes similar to the Duckett family since he was wearing large shoulder pads. Jon then assessed that these shoulder pads were way larger than what the Duckett family wore, and that the shoulder pads were actually connected in the middle to make a giant chest plate. An extremely large chest plate.

“Whoo!” The man stood up and slapped his face. Between his face paint, his armor, his clothes, and his hair were all the same color of red.

“Come on!” He yelled, slapping his chest plates and readying himself for another charge.

Jon instinctively readied his gun, firing before leaping out of the way of the unstoppable force.

He already knew it had no effect, the red man running through and destroying the blast with ease.

The man then changed direction and lowered his head towards Tallow, hoping to ram her as well.

He was traveling at such a high speed even Tallow had to use her wind mana to just barely get herself out of the red man’s path. Jon noticed that when she stood back up after tumbling, her sling arm was still hanging limp beside her.

She doesn’t have good balance. Jon could already see it getting in the way of her movement.

As if the second armored man wasn’t enough, a third one charged into the house as well, covered with a blue color scheme. Mercy was being carried on his shoulder, and when he turned he kept going until he slammed her against it.

Seeing that she was in trouble, Jon tried to shoot, but Tallow grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the way of another tackle.

She threw him over to another side of the room with her hand, but the man in red grabbed her by the neck, dragging her before slamming her against the wall as well.

Ultimare levitated his way back into the house. Jon readied his gun, even knowing that it would most likely be probably useless.

“Imbeciles,” he said. “Just wait until I’m finished with you.

Jon wasn’t gonna let him finish.

His finger had just barely caressed the trigger when he heard a large metal sound ringing from behind him.

Helia had just slammed a pan onto the head of the guy who kept Mercy pinned on the wall.

He turned to her with an incredulous look on his face.

“Did you just try to do that?” He asked, not showing any pain from the attack.

“I’m here! I’m here!” Mallory ran back inside the house from the back door. He pushed his hands out in front of him.

Two large tentacles pulled out from the walls and grabbed Ulitmare’s arms, forcing him down to the floor.

“I don’t need my hands to conduct magic!” Ultimate yelled.

“Oh, I’m already on that!” Mallory said, twirling his finger.

Another tentacle wrapped itself around Ultimare’s eyes.

Helia swung the pan again with both hands, slapping the blue man hard on the face. Still, he was unperturbed.

“Here, let me show you,” Mercy said, grabbing the pan out of Helia’s grasp with a single finger and quickly equipping it in her own hand. She raised it and charged it with energy before slamming it down on the man’s head.

This time, the hit caused him to stumble backward and drop Mercy from his grip.

On the other side, Stewart was trying to pull the red-haired man off of Tallow.

“Really?” Tallow asked. “Use the knife!”

“I lost it!” Stewart exclaimed. “Helia! She keeps-”

Tallow planted her feet onto the red man’s chest and pushed him off with her wind mana.

Now.

Jon ran to the side of the man and shot him while he was off-balance, keeping him in that state and opening him up for Tallow.

Tallow ran up and charged him with her injured shoulder, pushing far back into the edge of the house.

“Little girl!” the man yelled, more disoriented than hurt.

Tallow had already drawn the razorgrip with her free hand, and she swung it hard.

Wind mana formed in the center of the room it twisted into a wind column. It curved into the man, carrying him into another end of the house.

Mercy had begun a punching match with the all-blue mercenary. They both bobbed side to side in place, holding their hands up in front of their faces.

Mercy ducked a straight punch and returned a straight punch back in its opening, hitting him in the face.

His head was brought forward as quickly as it had been knocked out, except now it was decorated with a bloody nose.

He made a deceptively quick hook, hitting Mercy into the shoulder knocking her down to the side.

Jon fired at the man’s back before he could follow up, forcing him to trip forward.

“Ya!” Helia ran towards him and stabbed him in the back with the dagger.

The blue man turned and kicked forward, sending Healia across the room where she landed in a heap.

“Did you stab me?” He asked, trying to reach over his shoulder. The dagger had just barely pierced the back of the chest plate.

He decided to ignore it and ran after Jon.

He tried to grab him.

Slide.

The man’s hand quickly slipped off of Jon’s plaid.

“Hey!” He kept trying to grab Jon. Jon simply shrugged him off the first several times.

This was interrupted when the man was able to finally grab Jon’s arm.

“Ha!” the man yelled in excitement.

Jon was mildly impressed. He still didn’t know how it worked.

“Focus on me!” Mercy yelled, slashing at his back with her energy sword.

The man gave a small yelp of pain, but he was still relatively unhurt. He turned back to Mercy who had gotten closer.

“I’m energy resistant!” the man yelled, this time grabbing for her.

She moved her shoulder out of the way and brought her left fist back, clenching it.

The blue man saw this and tried to hit her on her right side.

However, the fist had turned out to be a feint from Mercy. She moved to the left, ducking the large right hook that he tried to give her while simultaneously deactivating her blade.

Black tool still in her right hand, she brought it up, giving the man a huge uppercut to the chin.

On her side, Tallow was still dodging the red-man’s attempts to grab her.

“Stand still!” he yelled. He waited until she was in a vulnerable position, then dived towards her.

She didn’t try to hop out of the way, instead of dropping her sword and shimmying slightly to the left.

She grabbed the back piece of his chest plate while he passed and led him to the stove, where he crashed headfirst.

While he was disoriented and still trying to pick himself up, Tallow leaped forward, grabbing the man by the back of the head and slamming it into the stovetop. She then alternated between punching him in the face and slamming his head into the side of the stove with her single hand.

When she was done, she elbowed him in the face once more before following up with a plam strike, knocking him to the other side of the room.

“Incoming!” Hector yelled as the man in yellow armor was slowly backed into the house by defending against Hector’s slow stream of fire.

Mercy and Tallow hopped towards the man from either side, Tallow sliding underneath and tripping the man while Mercy struck him hard in the face.

Hector finished by adding his own shoulder charge, hitting the armored man and sending him to Ultimare’s side.

Ultimare screamed, and the tentacles around his eyes burned away.

“I am tired of this!” he screamed.

“Me too!” Mallory exclaimed, his mana circle having expanded into its yellow symbols once again. “Time to embarrass myself.”

He put his wrists together with his hands open outward and pushed forward.

“Ha!” Two large jagged shapes materialized above and below Mallory.

Jon watched it form into a large six-legged creature as it traveled forward towards the purple-robed magician.

Its large mouth clapped down onto Ultimare, trapping his entire body except for his head, which lingered in shock from the side of its mouth.

Jon felt a sudden shiver when he realized it was a miniature replica of the giant monster that they had fought at the farm, except that it was composed entirely of Mallory’s light blue mana.

Even though it wasn’t full-sized, it still was the biggest object in the room.

Tendrils reached out from its body and connected to the three incapacitated mercenaries. It then jauntily shuffled its way out of the house, Ultimare’s still dazed face still hanging out of its closed jaws.

Stewart, before the attackers were all dragged out of the house, went up and grabbed Helia’s dagger from the blue-man’s back.

He then ran to the red-man and kicked him in the side.

The rest of the group gathered in the center while they watched the monster casually walk through the front door, dragging all of their enemies out with it.

“Is that what I think it is?” Mercy asked.

“Yep,” Mallory said with a nod and a big proud grin.

“Well, what is it?” Hector asked.

He got a couple of had turns.

“You don’t remember?” Mallory asked. ‘The monster at the farm.”

“I don’t remember how it looks like,” Hector said. “I just remember trying to kill it. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks?”

“How do you forget that?” Stewart asked, still holding his food.”

“Never mind that,” Hector said. “Is it dangerous?”

“Not to us,” Mallory said. “To me, maybe? To them, definitely.”

“Then that it?” Mercy asked.

“Not yet,” Mallory responded. “Gotta wait for the explosion.”

On cue, there was a large blast outside, shaking the inside of the house.

“Now, it’s done,” Mallory said with a nod. The spell circle disappeared from under him.

He took a few large breaths, and his shoulders shook, but he held his hand up to dissuade anyone from helping him.

“Wait… you guys fought that thing?” Tallow asked.

“A big one!” Mallory said. “Along with like three bad men and a whole army of lizards-”

“Never mind that!!” Hector said, observing the mess. “We need to get ready to go! Get what we need!”

“Helia!” Stewart called, drawing the group’s attention.

“Shit.” Tallow quickly looked around the area. “Where’d she go?”

“Shit.” It was Hector’s turn to curse. He ran out the back door.

The others followed. On the floor, a few feet away from the house, was an orange dagger.

“So, that’s where it went…” Stewart surmised.

Hector growled before letting it become a full yell that he sent up towards the heavens.

Helia… Jon wasn’t gonna bother trying to help Hector calm down. He looked at Mercy. She nodded.

When Hector finished, he looked at the otters with a drained look on his face.

“Stewart-”

“I”m not staying behind!” Stewart said. “My sister’s in danger, and I couldn’t stay behind knowing that! Even if it might be strategically sound for the man with no battle experience to stay out of the way of the action.”

“It makes sense for him to come,” Mercy said. “So that no one else is in danger here… and we should stay together.”

“Hell of a difference that made,” Hector said, but he put his sword back in its sheathe. “Let’s go!”

While Tallow muttered about how dramatic he was being, everyone found their way onto the wagon, which had been safe despite all of the hectic fighting going on.

Stewart, before climbing on, had picked up his own dagger that was on the floor.

He climbed up to Tallow and tried to give both daggers to her.

“What am I gonna do with that?” Tallow asked.

“I can’t do anything with them,” Stewart told her.

“Hold on to that for her, then,” Tallow said. “Give it back to her when it’s time.”

“Right…” Stewart nodded and sat down in the wagon, silently.

With Mallory at his side in the front, Hector whipped the reins, and the wagon started moving.