Fiona took great pleasure in the fact that these guys made it easy, where the attackers could only come at them from effectively two directions. So, dealing with Rock should be easy, when she tossed the coin purse with the gentlest of tosses--and it screamed at him like an unkind golden missile.

  He didn’t realize much this was going to hurt, because the coin impacted like a fist of the north star. He was sent reeling into the wall a few meters away, cracking the brownstone bricks. He collapsed on the ground, groaning.

  Note to self, dial back on the throws, or I could put a hole through those guys!

  Either way, that impact was going to leave a bruise in the morning. The second and third guy jumped into the fray with a burst of magical speed–these guys were not so dum-dums after all, and taking out the leader clearly didn't crush morale. She grappled with the catfolk, wishing she had the biggest water gun of all time to put this little furball in his place!

  Greg grappled with the other assailant, using fisticuffs to punch, lurched to the side of a particularly nasty short sword, and dodged the following strike with grace. Greg wasn’t super strong, but he was limber and quickly disarmed the woman before smacking her into the nearby wall, dazing her. He brought a Jackie Chan level of grace to the fight, grabbed a trash lid from a nearby refuse pile, and bashed her with it, the lid making a distinct gong sound.

  And, he even had time to adjust his tie, too!

  Ties were not meant for street fighting at all, no matter how cool they looked. The catfolk tried to slash at her, and she lurched to the right, forcing his hand wide and running his claws against the wall in an ear-grating sound of nails on a brickboard. Everyone winced, as did the cat, who now was properly declawed. She landed a solid kick to give herself space, then shifted the coins to her palm. “Hey, I think I overpaid for these services! Nah you know what, this is my money-back guarantee!”

  She flung the gold coins like tiny little shuriken, hitting the catfolk in the chest, the nose, his jaw, and another one in the torso, doubling him over and causing him to wheeze, on the ground and at her utter mercy. “Greg, how are you doing over there?” she called out with enthusiasm.

  “The situation is handled,” he said stiffly, before he glared accusingly at a torn collar. “Though, my attire has suffered some consequence.”

  All three assailants were down, and Fiona leaned down at the man grabbing his chest, looking nonplussed. “Look Rock, your services are kinda sucky. Don’t they teach you that crime doesn’t pay?”

  “Oh, got a feisty one, do we?” he glared at her before he whistled with his fingers. “Okay boys, we got ourselves one elf who can’t shut her trap, so let’s up the difficulty, shall we?”

  Half a dozen more assailants came in through a second-floor balcony like ninjas. But she was in a fantasy world, why were ninjas here? They still stood no chance against her.

  She grabbed some of the coins from her now-busted purse, and eyed them all with disgust. “Look, creeps, this is getting awkward. Like the door-to-door used car salesman who won't take 'no' for an answer. Go with peace, young folk! Or you know, get stomped on by me. Your call.”

  “Um…is that…” one young man, no older than his mid-teens gasped, and pointed at her. “You idiots! That’s the hero of Fiefdala! She and the Adventurer’s Guild wiped the floor against Douglas the Red! Hell with this, I’m going home, and going back to school!”

  “Uh–I uh–I forgot a very important appointment!” another girl stammered before darting back the same way the first kid came. Thus began a deluge of excuses ranging from ‘It was a dare, they made me do it!’ to someone leaving their automaton running.

  She knew the result: the only three willing to continue were the ones picking themselves off the ground, now standing shoulder to shoulder. “Ket, let’s just kill her,” the catfolk snarled. He had several coin-sized welts forming on his face, and he rubbed at his nose.

  “Fellas, please. I beat up dragons for fun,” Fiona yawned. “The only thing more deadly than a dragon around these parts is the tax rates around here, that’s the real killer!”

  “Ah, forget it, let’s rush her! She can’t take all three of us!” Rock snarled, and all of them drew their weapons again. Greg grabbed his notebook and scratched something into the paper in a quick flourish.

  To her amazement, the paper fluttered and then started twisting and growing, like a giant serpent of pulped wood. It quickly wound around the offenders and tethered them together, and they all shouted and tried to cut at the paper. When they grabbed it, they all winced and screamed in pain.

  “Oh, will you look at that? Paper cuts across the board,” Greg mused almost playfully. Fiona tried to not laugh, but it was too funny, and she broke down and pointed at them and cackled, while they were utterly constricted. The paper snake wrapped tighter, and they lost their grip on their weapons, all strained together.

  “Wanna let me do the honors, Greg?” she asked sweetly. “I’ll aim high, so they don’t bounce into a building.”

  “I would normally suggest the town guard,” Greg pushed back. Meanwhile, Fiona grabbed the bag of equipment and loot intended for the store, and hefted it onto her back. “Oh, ladies and gents, please, don’t ever let us catch you again. A watchman squad will be picking you up from your ill-timed swim in about…oh, five minutes,” he added as he tapped something on his arcane relay with his free hand. “You may proceed, Fiona.”

  She grabbed a few coins off the ground, along with the busted purse, and stashed them away in the bag, and only held onto a few. “Well fellas, I’m gonna have to decline your prior offer. I don’t like telemarketers, door-to-door salesmen, or promotions promising me fame and fortune if I donate to a really shady website. Don’t worry about the fare on this flight, this one’s for free,” she added with a polite smile.

  She took the spare gold coins, and wrapped them in a ball of paper that wound around them, trailing to the paper bindings. Greg then ripped the trailing page from his notebook, as they all watched Fiona wind up in horror.

  “Uh, what swim?” the catfolk asked nervously.

  “Oh, the upcoming one,” she added with a manic grin. “Looks like team rocket’s blasting off again!”

  She flung the bundled coins sky-high, arching over the street toward the lake to the north of them. The coins flew with incredible speed, and a split second later, the trio was sent screaming skyward, dragged into a trajectory over the streets of Fiefdala. The screams soon grew too distant to hear–or, maybe they had to catch their breath to continue screaming?

  "I must comment, Fiona, that the mundane toss of a coin, is indeed super effective," Greg quipped.

  Fiona dusted herself off and let out a sigh of delight. “Well, that was fun. I hope I don’t miss the lake with that toss.”

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  “Fiona…we should probably go talk at the apartment this evening about this discovery,” Greg said, finally letting out a labored breath and looking fatigued. “Because whatever your merchant class is, is not normal.”

  “Are you sure it’s not some kind of beastly magical strength? I work out, Greg,” she proposed. Greg gave her the sullen look, to signify he wasn’t putting up with deflections this time. “Alright, call Bonnie on the way. We’ll talk at my place.”

  Several seconds later…

  The trio of criminals saw they were flying in about the most awful way to fly: without wings.

  Rock was praying to every god and goddess that they land in the water, and not on land. His prayers were mercifully answered with a graceful dunking into a deep part of the lake–which was freezing this time of year.

  His head broke the surface a few seconds later, along with his associates, and he wailed–he had papercuts everywhere! This was both painful and humiliating!

  “'Easy mark', you said. 'We’ll take this one to the bank', you said!” The catfolk yowled, and was trying to get out of the water frantically. “I’m soaking wet, I have papercuts, and this water smells like fish,” he hissed, a look of utter disgust crossing his face.

  “Uh, what do we tell the cops? Because I see them coming already,” Ket groaned, and she pointed to the shore, where the town guard were hustling in, drawn by the spectacle of three people flying through the air.

  “Well, we tell them that we’re very, very sorry, and that we will do community service, and be model citizens after this. Because I don’t have a death wish, ever crossing paths with the Hero of Fiefdala ever again.” Rock sighed, and wrung the water out of his clothes. The town watch were not happy to see them, and he put up his hands in surrender.

  “We got a call about someone running an ‘extortion’ service. That you three?” One of the watch members queried while folding their arms, and looking cross.

  “We uh… disagreed on a business transaction,” Rock said with a sigh. “I want my legal counsel, by the way.”

  “Sure thing. As soon as you no longer smell like fish,” a second watchman replied with a chuckle, and broke out the cuffs. “Sheesh, how did you three end up taking a swim, anyway?”

  “A crazy elf chick and a suave-dressed man beat us up, tied us up, and flung us at insane speeds while tethered to a bundle of coins that the elf heaved with ungodly strength?” Ket proposed.

  “I think they’re lying,” the first town watchman sighed.

  “This is Cepalune, Rick. It ain't the strangest thing to hold true,” the second watchman countered, and cuffed them all. “Ew. Smelling this bad is almost punishment enough for you three.”

  “It’s never coming out of my fur!” the catfolk wailed, and indeed, did look like a drowned cat. “Damn you, crazy hot elf chick!”

  Later, at Fiona’s apartment…

  Greg was mildly impressed. Fiona could sense it even if he wore the hardest of emotional expressions, after she laid what they had figured out about the magic of her mark. Bonnie was all bright eyes and bushy-tailed—quite literally, in her case. Fiona almost snerked at the pun from her train of thought.

  “Bonnie, she can lift heavy metals and gold like they weigh either nothing or almost nothing.” He let out a frustrated exhale, before pacing back and forth. “What precedent is there? Gravity magic? Some kind of transmutation of the gold?”

  “Oh, I have no idea, but I find it fascinating,” Bonnie responded with a cackling laugh. She really did lean into the witch vibe, even though she was an enchantress who made runes for days on every material imaginable. “Well, I don’t know who you were in contact with when you were passed out in your impromptu paper fort at the license office, but damn if the results aren’t impressive!”

  “Question: do all the summons get zany powers?” Fiona asked nervously.

  “Strangely, no. They get a random class when they show up, with no fanfare or anything. Though, they tend to manifest as something aligning with their skills and personality, in general.”

  “I can’t believe you guys never mentioned summons before this week,” Fiona added, puffing an errant hair out of her face. Her hair just could not be contained, no matter how hard she tried.

  Greg shuffled uneasily. “Primarily, because they’re not common. But, they do happen. I should have explained this sooner. I’ll take a knock on the head on that front, because you were being…stubborn.” It was a rare concession from Greg, one that tempered her next response.

  “Not anymore. I want to know who brought me here. And why. I feel like they put me smack dab right where I was needed, right before Douglas the Red started wrecking stuff.” She ran her fingers across her temples, rubbing gently. “You guys think that was related, too?”

  “I don’t think so,” Greg countered. “Though, I do question the history. Douglas was a business dragon of considerable repute before the recent events. Something about it still strikes me as odd. Now, Bonnie, since we’re all on the same page, I believe we can trust Jake on this one, to keep this discussion and our queries confidential. Do you agree?"

  "I've always trusted Jake," Bonnie replied sharply, while Fiona nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, we can let him in on this one."

  "Glad we're in alignment. I find that information like this, working its way to Barrimeth Greybeard, would not be favorable to Fiona’s well-being and standing. Especially, now that I know precisely why she is so determined to stay.”

  “That’s his full name?” Fiona snerked at this. “Damn, Rikkard, you put a giant bully magnet on your kid with that name! No wonder he turned out rotten!"

  “It is the wolven word for ‘resolute’, actually,” Greg corrected her. She stopped laughing, if only because Greg treated it with more respect than she would. “I don’t share any love for our Regent King, given his use of a law clearly intended to legally harass and extort someone that the King viewed as an adversary two hundred years ago. And, using the dragon’s hoard as a technical definition of historical treasure, to apply the tax.”

  “And, I bet he knew this, because he worked in the tax office,” Fiona concluded. “So, he knew how to screw us. This was pre-planned!”

  “Now that I think about it, this explains your fervor at him initially beyond a rational respone. Not just your anger at being utterly betrayed by the head of state, but that he threatened to take away your entire world,” Greg deduced, his expression of chiseled marble softening and looking more human. “And you already lost that once.”

  Fiona gazed at Greg for a good long second, realizing that had to be hard for him to say. She nodded after a few seconds, and let out a shaky sigh. “Greg, I’m just a woman who got thrust to the other side of the cosmos, and barely came out of it with my sanity in one piece. I might be able to smack around giant monsters like nobody’s business, and make a sale on just about anything. But, I am still very much a human being.”

  “Elven,” Bonnie corrected. She kept doing that gaze, looking her up and down. “Someone must have been watching out for you. It’s the only conclusion I can make. Twice, now.”

  “Zero for ten, would never recommend transmigration again. But, why me?”

  “Well…the gods and goddesses that we know of have been prone to recruiting remarkable individuals from time to time. Gaia, Goddess of combat and martial discipline, is one. Venuu’ri, god of love and mischief, has been known to recruit people to help…uh…”

  “Get busy?” Fiona suggested with a raised eyebrow, while Bonnie snickered beside her. “Greg, let’s be real, gods and goddesses didn’t exist in my world. Though, given everything I’ve seen in the past six months, I'm pretty sure that I’d believe anything is possible, by this point.”

  Then, she went through the thought process like Greg would. Logically. “I was brought back from death. A possible hidden mission from some jacked-up goddess. A vengeful strength against monsters bigger than me. I have a secret class identity? I have weird powers over gold? What’s that add up to?” she pondered these, and then, it hit her. It was utterly absurd.

  But, it only added up to one thing.

  She jumped for joy and shrilled gleefully. “I’m a magical girl, baby! With trauma packed in, for extra goodness!”

  “What’s a ‘magical girl’ exactly?” Greg asked, ever the square. She gave him a dismissive wave.

  “Ah, it's an Earth culture thing, you wouldn’t understand just yet. Ah hell yes, evil taxman, you’ve barked up the wrong tree this time!” Fiona roared in triumph, and pumped her fist in the air, while Bonnie laughed.

  “I think we should just let her roll with this for a bit, Greg,” she said, while holding her muzzle from laughing too hard. Greg rolled his eyes in response.

  “Yes, just like we should ‘roll’ with some of Fiona’s other insane ideas.”

  “You love me, Greg. I make money, and good friends,” Fiona assured him with a flashy smile and a reassuring arm around his shoulder.

  “Love hurts,” he grunted. “It is a bleeding spectacle of pain upon my soul.”

  “Bah, cheer up, we’ll be fine from now on. Man, I should see what else this superpower does–”

  “Fiona, we should probably test this very discreetly,” Bonnie cautioned. “From what you told me, gold weighs nothing to you, and you can fling it to low Cepalune orbit. That could be pretty dangerous, for the record.”

  Fiona stared blankly at Bonnie, and then a grin emerged. “You know, I don’t think anyone would believe it was me, if I flung a chunk of gold up, and it came smack down through the roof of the palace, and wrecked Beardless’s cushy throne–”

  “No, Fiona,” Bonnie and Greg groaned in unison. She pouted only a little at this instant shut-down of a rather cool idea.

  (Magius acquires the Merchant Class to make the sale...)

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