People began shuffling about the floor around Fiona. Men seemed to fall out of the crowd and appear all around her. They gave each other gnces, that seemed to be a conversation without words.

  Darn, looks like I pushed it too far.

  A man put his hand on Fiona's shoulder.

  “What a lucky girl. You should come upstairs with us and have a talk.”

  “Ahh.” She let out a sigh. “Looks like I went and messed up the pn.”

  “Gahhhhh!” Screamed the man behind her as he buckled over in pain.

  He clutched at his stomach, which seemed to have been ripped open, in only a matter of seconds.

  “It won't really matter. You were all probably going to die anyway.”

  What she had previously concealed was now on open dispy in her grasp. A handgun, a blue crystalline fusil with a wooden grip. It was a magic weapon that could let anyone able to control mana fire off spells simir to those of a mage.

  The weapon was silent, leaving behind only the man's screams. It took less than a second for people to realize what had happened, but for Fiona that time was plenty.

  She maneuvered the gun to the side, and focused her mana into it once more. The crystal glowed and a shard of ice briefly appeared at the end of its barrel before piercing through the skull of one of the men beside her.

  By now most of the unaffiliated gamblers had fled towards the door, and every gangster left in the hotel parlor had their eyes turned to Fiona.

  “You bitch!” Yelled a man who lunged at her from the opposite side, aiming his dagger at her heart.

  Fiona jumped backwards, ying down on the dice table. With a kick she put her leather boot into the face of the attacker.

  As he staggered she fired the gun once more at another gangster rushing towards the table. The ice nce pierced into his side, momentarily stopping him.

  Switching the gun's position in her hand, she smashed the wooden grip into the throat of the closest attacker. Her other hand grabbing at the dagger that fell from his grasp.

  She stood up on the table, looking around at the situation. She was surrounded on all sides, by several dozen men.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Three men fired handguns at Fiona. The musket balls smmed into her torso. They tore at her skin, and managed to draw blood, but did not penetrate far.

  She returned fire with her fusil, skewering one of the gunmen in the shoulder.

  Damnit.

  She had to hold off on firing anymore than that. If she kept firing it would leave her without the adequate mana to protect against the gunshots.

  Crash!

  A man slid into the side of the dice table, causing a leg to crumble inwards, colpsing the ptform from underneath Fiona. She fell backwards onto the tilted table.

  A new attacker hacked down at her with a sword. Instinctively she moved her gun over to block the bde.

  Crack!

  The crystal that made up the body of the gun shattered, shooting fragments in all directions. Only the wooden grip was left in her hand.

  “You bastard! Do you know how much that cost?!”

  He opened his mouth to urge his comrades to seize the opportunity he created, but it was too te. Fiona had already thrown her dagger right between his eyes. She followed up by catching the sword from his limp hands.

  She quickly turned around, sword in hand, decapitating the man approaching behind her. Before she could recover her strike a new bde came reaching for her from the side. Unable to block with the sword she raised her arm to defend.

  The bde cut through her leather jacket, and pierced into her arm. Blood quickly dyed the arm red, though her mana had prevented it from cutting too deep.

  After barely stopping the strike she brought her sword hand back around to the side, puncturing the man’s chest right in the center by his heart. She kicked his body backwards, knocking over the man behind him and creating some much needed distance.

  “Hah!” She cried.

  Fuck. I was too impulsive again. I should have waited till they took me upstairs, even if it meant letting them take the gun.

  Even with abilities that far outpaced a normal human, she was still starting to get exhausted fighting off such a massive mob. Unlike the young man from the PH Ducal knight order, she was not an exceptionally skilled fighter, only ever being an average talent in a second rate Imperial chapter. Her one greatest strength was her aim with a magic fusil, though that as well had been rendered useless after the gun was destroyed.

  “Come here, those with no fear of death.” Despite her condition, she was at no liberty to show any weakness.

  Aubrey turned around to face the doorway from which she had entered. The door, which was only slightly ajar when she had entered, was now fully opened. In the threshold stood a tall man.

  “I thought I smelled a familiar scent.” He said.

  The man wore a low cut white shirt, simir in hue to his long white hair. It stretched down his back, at a comparatively simir length to Aubrey’s, though unlike her the man’s hair was long and straight, flowing like a curtain of silk.

  He had a handsome, if not slightly effeminate face. Pale skin, clean shaven, without a hint of stubble, thought most striking about him was his long pointed ears, that seemed to push through his hair.

  “A vampire!” Cried Aubrey, readying her sword.

  Empowering her wings she took to the air. Firing herself straight towards the man, her bde pointed at his throat. Despite moving at a speed faster than an arrow, she had still failed to connect.

  The man’s body disappeared in a cloud of mist, Aubrey passed straight through where he had been standing, before making an abrupt stop, coming to a hover in the hallway just outside the room.

  “How rude.” Said the fog, which gradually began to reform into the shape of a man. “Is this how you treat your kinsfolk? It’s been so long since I met a fellow faerie.”

  “What nonsense do you speak?”

  Aubrey spoke back to the vampire, trying to not let his confusing statements cloud her judgement.

  Aubrey had long since passed the point where she could be caught off guard by a random spider. Her sense of mana had returned to roughly a simir spot as it had been before her transformation. Still, the man had been able to quite easily sneak up on her.

  Now the creature was speaking nonsense calling himself a faerie. Faeries looked like Aubrey, they were small women with insect-like wings. Still Aubrey chose to probe his intentions and ask a question. She was cautious now, the ability to turn one’s body into something else, something that would let a sword pass through as if they were cutting at nothing but air. She had only seen it once before from the witch who had turned her into a faerie.

  “Haha!” Laughed the man. By now his body had reformed into a physical state, and he stood behind the hanging corpses near the window. “So that’s how it is. How amusing. I was wondering why you carried both the scent of humans and the fae.”

  Aubrey only continued to gre at the man, holding her small sword outstretched and pointed towards him.

  “You are nothing but a newborn, a simple pixie who shed her human skin.” The man bent over, picking up a cup from the floor and dipping it into the blood filled buckets.

  Aubrey wanted to stop the desecration of the knight’s corpses, but was too cautious to continue attacking, at least not yet.

  “You don’t even know what you are, little pixie. You have amused me greatly so I will try and satiate your curiosity some.” He brought the cup to his lips, and drank from it. A drop spelled down his mouth, staining his pale skin a dark red.

  “All pixies are faeries, but not all faeries are pixies. Are there not different races of humans in your realm?” He continued. “I am an elf, it is only humans who call me a vampire. The Fae is another realm entirely, and like all faeries us elves are bound to it. All except for you pixies that is.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Aubrey was struggling to make sense of what the man said. He did not stutter, and she had recognized most of the words stated. The issue was the new information was incomprehensibly different from Aubrey’s understanding of the world.

  Faeries and vampires come from a different world? Is that what the creature is saying?

  “Pixies are unique among faeries, the only of our kind who can freely traverse the realms. It is likely why humans refer to them as faeries, since they are unlikely to ever encounter those of the other races.”

  The man brought the cup to his lips once more. Aubrey pnned to use this as an opportunity to attack, but held back at the st moment.

  The whole time whilst he drank the man maintained eye contact with Aubrey. Though normal in a regur conversation, because of her small size most people ended up looking at her head or around the general direction of her eyes. But not the man who cimed to be an elf, despite the darkness of the room, despite her small size, he stared directly into her pupils.

  “For an elf like me to exist in these nds there are rules to follow.” He continued after finishing his drink. “Never appear under the sun, drink only the blood of creatures from this realm, there are too many to list.”

  “I’ve heard enough.” Replied Aubrey.

  Despite the otherworldly chill the man gave her, she could not back down. She could not let uncertainty paralyze her for much longer.

  The man reached down into the bucket once more, going to scoop another cup full of blood. It was only once his hand submerged did she attack.

  Once more her sword aimed at the man. She was intent on striking him through the eye, protruding into his brain, she had hoped to kill him instantly in one shot. She forced as much mana as she could gather into her sword, hoping it would help mitigate whatever technique the man used to turn into mist.

  Bang!

  A resounding boom sounded out in the small room. This time the man did not turn to mist, but at the same time his eyes had remained intact. He grasped his hand tightly around her bde, having caught it in one hand.

  “What a cute little bde. A pixie using a sword? It seems I myself am much too young to have seen all this world has to offer.”

  In comparison to her body Aubrey’s sword was very long. Standing at almost the same height as her body, but that was only when in comparison. The man’s fist grasped around the sword. The bde extended past his grip by more than a thumb's length, pointing towards his eye, but stopping short of it.

  Aubrey tried to fp her wings faster, and harder, but it only caused the man’s grasp to waver slightly.

  “How annoying.” He said. “I was hoping to get one more drink.”

  Aubrey let go of the bde. Instead she used mana to empower her fists, it was a technique she had since abandoned after her transformation, but in this situation it was one of the only options that remained.

  Flying away from his fist and once more aiming at his face, she did not make it much further. A gust of wind carried her backwards, she tumbled over in the air before regaining her bance. It had been a while since she had encountered it, but she was still able to recognize it immediately.

  A faerie’s wind magic?!

  “It seems that’s about all I can do.” Said the man once more.

  Aubrey only felt confusion at the remark. If anything she was the one who had exhausted all options of attack.

  “How troublesome, the ws of my being prevent me from harming pixies. Not that I ever intended to harm a cute little newborn like yourself. You’ve given me too much amusement for that.”

  The man dropped her sword to the ground, a long streak of blood was smeared across his hand, along where he held onto the bde.

  She cautiously steadied herself, eyes focusing solely on the man before her. Once more his form began to dissipate into mist. The fog hovered out towards the small window and into the night sky.

  “I leave you with one st gift, little pixie. I was just beginning to tire of this town anyways.” The echoing voice seemed to resound from all directions. “Go to the forest's edge by a small vilge, Bolstin if I recall correctly, there lives a witch, she can answer any question you may have.”

  With the parting message spoken, the st remaining trace of the vampire had disappeared.