'Even I shouldn't be able to get lost' my ass! The bell tower is right! There! Why the fuck am I not able to get to it!

I marveled at my own skill to stray off the right path and into who knows where. I was currently walking along some back alley. It had been about half an hour since I'd set out.

I kicked a rock and it clattered to the ground a few meters in front of me.

"Just head for the bell tower, he said," I grumbled. "You can't get lost, he said. Well, I mean, it's not really his fault since he hasn't actually experienced just how bad my sense of direction is yet, but still. Ugh."

I kicked another rock out of my way. It bounced off the wall in front of me. The alley separated in a T where I stood, and I looked in both directions before closing my eyes, spinning a few times, and heading off in the direction I ended facing.

What? It wasn't like I knew where I was anyway, so that was as good a method as any. It certainly hadn't failed me in the times before. I'd most likely get even further from my destination than before, but it'd work out in the end. It always did.

Staying put and waiting for someone to find me certainly wasn't an option. Call it eldest child syndrome or whatever, but when you're the eldest of three kids, you gain this need to be independent and become determined to not cause as much trouble as your brat siblings. Of course, me getting lost all the time was pretty much unavoidable, so I vowed to at least be able to find my way back when I got lost. My family actually wasn't sure if I had a bad sense of direction or was just particularly prone to taking unplanned and extremely long detours.

They were probably worried sick back in my world.

...

Anyways.

I came to another T, and since I went right last time, this time I decided to go left. There were several doors in the alleys I had walked in so far, but lemme tell ya now that it is a bad, bad idea to knock on the back doors of places you don't know. I learnt that the hard way when I was twelve.

I rounded the next corner and came face to face with a dead end.

"Ugh."

I weighed my options and decided the best one was to climb over the damn wall and continue on from there. Backtracking was just too much trouble.

Fortunately, the alley was narrow enough that I could stretch my limbs out, planting them on the walls, and sort of shuffle-climb my way up, with the blocking wall supporting my back. Once I felt most of my back clear the top of the wall, I awkwardly shifted until I was sitting on top of it, legs dangling. I took a moment to admire how high I'd climbed, then swung my legs around and dropped down the other side of the wall.

Straightening up from the crouch I'd fallen into, I brushed myself off, looked up, and blinked in surprise when I found two rough looking men blocking the narrow alleyway. I looked behind me and discovered a beat up teenage boy with dark skin and hair the colour of an apricot.

I began to vaguely recall the yelling and grunting and general sounds of someone being beaten up that I had heard and ignored when I was climbing up the wall.

I looked back at the two in front of me. They didn't look like they'd be willing to let me go peacefully.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. There was nothing for it but to bullshit my way out of this situation then.

"Well, hello," I greeted. "My apologies for dropping in so suddenly."

I snickered mentally at my lame pun.

"Who the hell are you?" snarled the guy with a dark blue mohawk.

"Just a very lost person trying to get unlost," I said. "You know how it is. You're trying to get somewhere, but don't really know the way, and next thing you know you're dropping down in the middle of three civilised gentlemen's conversation."

I shrugged in a 'what can you do?' way at the men. There was a quiet disbelieving snort behind me at the civilised bit, which I ignored.

"Well, 'Just a very lost person trying to get unlost', you know what? We don't appreciate you dropping down in our 'conversation'. And you know what we do to people who we don't appreciate?"

Mohawk towered- oh wait, he didn't. He couldn't. I was taller than him by a small but noticeable amount. It was a novel experience, meeting a thug that was shorter than me. Mohawk tried to tower threateningly over me.

"You helpfully give them directions to the main road and send them on their way?"

"No." Mohawk's friend cracked his knuckles and spoke. "We beat the shit out of them."

Negotiations have broken down. I repeat, negotiations have broken down.

"Ah." I stared at them impassively and sighed in mock disappointment. At least, I hope it sounded like mock disappointment. "I was afraid you'd say that. Oh well."

I clicked my fingers and a Light Orb appeared.

"Do you know what this is?" I asked, with a shit-eating grin. I was good at those. I brought the Light Orb closer to Mohawk's face and he automatically leaned away.

My friends had told me several times that I had two distinct laughs. One was the loud cackle that I normally did. The other was the creepy mix of a giggle and snigger that I used when I either was about to attempt something extremely stupid or wanted to unnerve people.

Guess which one I was using now.

I used [Light Manipulation] and twirled a tendril of light around my finger, still grinning unnervingly at the two increasingly nonplussed men while leaning forward.

Knucklecracker tsked and took two steps back and to the side. Mohawk was more reluctant to back down, but did so eventually, to my relief.

He gritted his teeth and spat out, "We'll let you go this time, out of the goodness of our hearts. But if I were you, I'd watch my back the next time I ended up in here."

"My, my, your concern certainly is touching. Well, I'll be going now."

I let the Light Ball disappear and walked a ways down the alley, then realised I was walking alone. I turned around and blinked at the dark-skinned boy, who was still slumped against the wall.

"My company is much preferable to these two's, don't you think?" I said. At his small 'Eh?' of surprise, I added, "If you'd rather stay with them though, that's fine too."

"N-no, I'll come with you."

He started to stumble his way towards me. Knucklecracker reached a hand out to him.

"Oi, what-"

"Why now, your leg appears to be injured. You shouldn't be walking on that." I stepped forward and lifted the surprisingly light boy off the ground in a bridal carry. He spluttered in shock.

"W-wh-what are you-!"

"We'll be taking our leave now. Have a good day." I nodded at the two dumbfounded men and quickly swept out of the alleyway. To my relief, I only had to turn two corners until I reached the main road again.

"Um... you can put me down now."

"Hm? Oh yeah." I set him down gently on his feet. "Sorry about the lifting you up and carrying you away with asking first thing."

"No, it's fine, you saved me after all."

He brushed himself off and there was a moment of silence.

"So, that was-"

"That was terrifying."

My knees suddenly buckled beneath me and I collapsed, just barely managing to save myself from kissing the ground at the last minute.

"Holy fuck, I seriously thought they were going call my bluff and beat me up! I've never been in a real fight before. I don't even know if I can throw a punch. That ball of light was completely harmless. The most I could have done with it was blind them for about three seconds. I was fully relying on the hope that they'd back off because of fear of the unknown. Holy shit, I can't believe that worked. Shit. Fuck. I'm shaking."

As I shakily tried to get up again, I could see the boy I'd helped looking rather stunned at the sudden drop of what I like to call my 'overly polite badass' persona. (My friends and two younger brothers like to call it the 'shitty James Bond imitation'. I like to ignore them.)

"Okay," I breathed. "Okay, we're okay. Right. Okay. We got out of that one unscathed."

I looked up at my companion.

"Right, I'm Joan." I held my hand out to him. "What's your name?"

He shook my hand cautiously. "I'm... you can call me Toen."

"Hello, Toen, it's nice to meet you. So, what exactly did you do to get yourself into that kind of situation?"

Toen chewed on his lip. I could see that on one hand, he felt that he owed that much to his saviour, but on the other, he really didn't want to.

He looked seriously relieved when I said, "You know what, nevermind. Don't know what I'd do with the information anyway."

I peered at his face in concern. "How you feelin'? That's one nasty black eye you've got there."

"Ah." He self-consciously raised a hand to feel at the bruised flesh and winced slightly. "Um, yeah, I might need to put some ointment on it when I get back home."

"Home? You a local?"

"I've been living here since I was five, and I'm nineteen now, so-"

"Wait, nineteen?" I said in disbelief. "I thought you were like, fourteen or something!"

At his glare, I hurriedly added on, "Ah, it's not that you particularly look like a kid or anything, it's just that your voice is pretty soft, and you're sorta on the short side, and-" I noticed his glare intensifying "I should shut up now, shouldn't I."

"That would be good, yes." He gave me one last scowl and muttered something under his breath (I could just barely make out some words like 'can't believe' and 'cool' and 'same person'), before sighing and smoothing away his irritated expression. Toen bowed slightly to me and spoke.

"Unpleasant conversation topics aside, I really am grateful to you for saving me. If you ever need help or a favour, you can find me at the Mayflower Bakery on Clove Street during working hours. Even if you don't need help, feel free to drop by anyway and I'll give you some pastries as thanks."

He smiled genuinely at me. I waved my hands, slightly embarrassed by how sincere he was being.

"Don't worry about it. It was only the right thing to-" I began, wanting to say something cool.

Then I remembered why I had gotten into that situation in the first place. My somewhat flustered waving turned into scratching the back of my head sheepishly. I gave Toen an awkward smile.

"Actually, would you mind if I cashed in that favour right now? I wasn't lying when I said I was a very lost person."