Chapter 2:

As Nia closes in, Chelsea dances to the side and with a snap she launches a fire arrow. The attack splashes against Nia’s leg as the woman charges at Chelsea again. Heat resistant, huh?

Chelsea dashes forward, slipping to the side of Nia’s punch and throwing her own punch, fist engulfed in orange flames, that slams into the giant’s chest, making Nia stumble back, eyes wide. Nia throws another punch and Chelsea ducks out of the way, dancing back.

“Let’s see how resistant you are.” Left hand out, Chelsea snaps her fingers and a wall of fire flares into existence between herself and Nia. Chelsea dashes to the side as Nia roars and charges through the fire. Jumping off the railing, Chelsea leaps into the air, twisting as a points her hand in a finger gun, a ball of flame forming and condensing, the orange flames burning until they turn yellow and she fires a yellow-hot beam of flame.

The beam burns through Nia’s leg, making her let out a cry as she falls onto her knee. Chelsea lands –

“Oof!” Pain spikes through Chelsea’s face and she’s flung into the wall from the force of the impact. As she gets to her feet, Chelsea faces a large, gorilla-like magical beast. “You weren’t even camouflaged…” Chelsea shakes her head. Can’t let myself get distracted like that, she says while glancing at Nia, who grips her injured leg.  

Snap.  

A white-hot arrow of fire burns through the magical beast’s head and fells it. Chelsea rolls her shoulder as she quickly sweeps the room with her eyes and then turns toward Nia and the other woman, who still stands near the doorway, watching.

The woman in the back sighs. “So that’s who you are. Of course they sent in a Paladin. Keep her busy, Nia. Don’t make her angry, or she could burn everything here to a crisp.”

Nia grits her teeth as the woman turns to hurry out the room.

“She’s wrong, you know,” Chelsea says as she stops in front of Nia. “I’m not a Paladin.” And I doubt you could make me angry enough to burn everything to crisp and lose the reward for this job… “Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t let her get away.”

Snap.

A wall of flame appears in front of the woman rushing, and she skitters to a stop.

The woman sighs. “Nia, I said keep Snap-Flare –”

Snap.

“My name,” Chelsea says as a blue-hot arrow slams into the woman’s holster and rips her gun away from her hip. “Is Chelsea. I don’t believe I caught yours.”

Nia grunts and then lunges into a punch. Chelsea ducks and then reaches up to grab Nia’s arm, making her shout and snatch her arm back, clutching it to her chest.

“You should’ve tried harder to pummel me before. Now that I’m this fired up, you’ll need to hit harder, and be more heat resistant.” Chelsea turns back to the other woman, who wipes sweat off her brow. “So, that’s Nia. What’s your name, and what were you doing here?”

Clenching her jaw, the woman pushes up her glasses. “N-Natalia.”

“So what is it you were doing here –”

Chelsea suddenly twists as she turns around and she thrusts up her left hand, snapping her fingers and another wall of flame flares into existence.

Shuffling to the side, Chelsea sees a hole punched through the wall and a spear of water hits the ground where she was moments earlier.

Without hesitating, Chelsea sends a fire arrow through the hole with a snap of her fingers. Another newcomer?

Moments later, in the air around Chelsea, icicles form, hovering before they launch toward her. Chelsea crouches and smacks the ground. A dome of fire flares into existence and surrounds her and the icicles melt and sizzle against Chelsea’s flames as they come down.

The wall of fire Chelsea just put up is sliced through and extinguished. A person wearing a full-body suit and mask, leaving only their long hair visible. The suit is well-fitting and shows the woman’s shape and size as she approaches Nia.

As a bullet of fire shoots from Chelsea’s dome, the woman jumps back, pulling water out of the air to form a circular shield that starts to steam at the impact. A barrage of the flame bullets pour forth, and the woman spreads her water shield, covering herself and Nia to defend against Chelsea’s onslaught.

A moment later, Chelsea bursts forward, the dome of flames flowing into a ball in front of Chelsea that she blasts forward. The masked woman jumps to the side as Chelsea’s ball of fire turns her wall of water to steam and passes through it.

Chelsea jerks her hand, and the ball of fire stops and then redirects, shooting right for the masked woman. The woman shoots a ball of water that extinguishes the fireball and then she creates a whip of water –

Snap. Snap.

Chelsea unleashes two fire arrows. The woman coils the water whip she just created into a shield that blocks the first arrow, but the impact knocks her back and the second arrow –

“Ah!” Nia, dripping sweat and sucking in breaths, lets out a yell as she steps in front of the masked woman and takes the second fire arrow. The large woman grabs a magical beast corpse and launches it at Chelsea, who dives to the side, panting.

If I keep fighting like this, those three may actually end up cooked. Chelsea looks between Nia and the other woman, who launches a spear of water.

Chelsea launches forward with a propulsive burst from her hands, sending a fire arrow at the masked woman with a snap of her fingers. Landing, Chelsea swings her leg in a roundhouse kick that Nia blocks, but the force of the impact sends Nia into the wall.

Steam suddenly rises from Chelsea’s arm. She looks down to find a tentacle of water wrapped around her wrist, sending steam into the air. Chelsea aims a finger gun at the woman, and fire ignites in front of her finger. After a moment it swirls and then fires forward as a beam.

The woman in the mask narrowly dodges the beam as she runs forward, but Chelsea uses a propulsive bursts to send herself upward toward Natalie, who has moved away from the wall of fire in her way.

Before Chelsea reaches Natalia, more tentacles of water wrap around her, at her waist and leg, creating more steam where they touch her. Chelsea thrusts her hands out before her and lets off another burst that sends her flying backward.

The masked woman tries to move but Chelsea slams into her and knocks the woman to the ground, but Chelsea rolls to her feet as the water holding her loses its shape and falls to the floor.

Before Chelsea can press her advantage, she dodges to the side at the sound of a gun, then jumps back as she sees Natalia step forward and continue firing. Another gun? Chelsea says as her eyes flick to the partly melted firearm behind Natalia.

Chelsea uses a burst to launch into the air as Nia throws another magical beast’s body at her. Chelsea thrusts out her hand, fire forming –

Something slams into Chelsea from above and smacks her into the ground. Then water flows around her body and freezes in place even as it steams and melts. Chelsea hears footsteps and she snaps the fingers of her right hand, launching a fire arrow.

She hears ice shatter and then the footsteps fade and she can no longer feel the heat signatures. Chelsea sighs as the ice melts around her. As Chelsea pushes herself up, the remaining ice cracks and breaks from around her.

Chelsea sits for a moment, closing her eyes and breathing slowly. When she opens her eyes, the world slows, her hearing snaps back to its normal range, and the temperature in the room drops. Sighing, Chelsea looks around the room, seeing it full of the unmoving bodies of magical beasts.

She fumbles forward toward the still-melting ice, scooping her hands at the top of the small ice mound and melting into water that she shovels into her mouth. After multiple scoops of water, she finally sit back, taking in deep breaths. Her stomach growls.

Pushing herself to her feet, Chelsea moves through the room. They’ve probably cleaned the place out, but let’s see if they left anything behind. Chelsea leaves the room, scanning the hall she enters as she moves through the building.

Chelsea stops as she comes to an office, and she moves to a computer

***

“Chelsea, you’re back!” As soon as Chelsea walks through the doors and approaches the guildhall’s reception counter, she is dragged into an office. Kendra sits in front of the computer and waits as Chelsea adjusts herself. “I was expecting that you’d make a report online, but this is great! Tell me how the request went.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Chelsea takes her goggles from her coat and sets them in her lap. “Well, the magical beasts were subjugated. I suppose the request issuer already submitted the completion report?” Chelsea takes a sack from her pocket and pours out a few crystals onto the table.

“Did they give you a lot of trouble?” Kendra looks at the filled sack and then at Chelsea’s appearance.

“Not the magical beasts, but some anomalies did show up…”

“What?” Kendra looks away from the keyboard.

Chelsea sighs, then taps her fingers on the table, and tells Kendra about the three who’d attacked her. “When I arrived, most of the magical beasts were docile; they didn’t attack until after I’d eliminated the first one that attacked me, one that was like a guard.

“I would put Nia at as a B-rank metahuman, tough, strong, heat resistant. If Natalia was metahuman, I wouldn’t know since she didn’t use any ability that I noticed. Then another person, a water-type metahuman showed up. I thought they were a woman and she was wearing a mask. If I had to guess, she would actually be an A-ranker; it didn’t seem like she’d thrown anywhere near all she had at me, but the three of them were enough to deal with me inside a building I didn’t want to burn down.”

Kendra types for a moment in silence. “I do believe this warrants a review of the video feed from the mission. Did you find anything that could help determine what their purpose was?”

Shaking her head, Chelsea sets her goggles on the table and takes out a small memory card, handing it to Kendra. “No, other than them seemingly taming magical beasts, I didn’t find anything.”

As Kendra takes the memory card and inserts it into the computer, she looks at Chelsea. “Is there something else?”

“No,” Chelsea says.

Kendra looks at Chelsea for a moment, searching her face. “Very well. I’ll mark the request complete and submit the video feed for review to the Adventurers Guild, Paladin Security, and the police. That’s all,” Kendra says then smiles. “Unless you’re looking to take on another request –”

“No, I’m good.”

***

When Chelsea enters the apartment building, she nods at the woman sitting at the front desk as she walks past and heads up the stairs. In the hall, Chelsea greets a couple as they walk past her and then Chelsea pulls keys out of her pocket and stops at a room, opening the door.

With a sigh, Chelsea takes of her coat and hangs it up on the coat rack by the door. Turning, she sets her keys down as she yawns with a stretch. She hears the sound of an eating utensil being set on a dish as she walks farther into the room.

“Wow, Chelsea. Shouldn’t you be more concerned when you come home to find someone in your apartment?” Sitting at the table is a dark-skinned woman, a plate and cup sitting in front of her.

Chelsea rolls her eyes. “If you were concerned about that, you wouldn’t do it.” Chelsea walks to the cabinet and takes out a cup, filling it with water and then taking a seat next to the woman.

The woman shakes her head. “How do you do that, anyway? Know it’s me?”

Smiling, Chelsea sips from her cup and shrugs. “Did you need something, Brandi? Or are you just here for a free meal?”

Brandi grins with a raised eyebrow but then it fades and she shakes her head. “No…I need your help, sis.”