Chapter 112: Homecoming!
The receptionist had made a terrible error in judgment. He’d made eye contact.
That was all it took with Lizzie. One second of accidental eye contact and now he was trapped behind his own desk while she leaned over it, wiggling an oversized handgun in front of his face with enthusiasm as she recounted the story of her mental battle.
"So I’ve got Betty here, right below its balls—" she tilted the gun, and the receptionist pressed himself further back against his chair with nowhere left to go, "—like this."
She pressed the barrel gently under his chin and the poor man went pale, eyes wide, sweat already beading on his forehead.
"Then I pulled—"
Suddenly, she stopped speaking or moving all together.
Her grin didn’t disappear so much as it recalibrated. Her eyes went to the entrance, sharpened, and for a moment the gun just hung there, forgotten.
The entire lobby seemed to quiet around her as she registered Kurt, Cassandra, and the unfamiliar Minari girl standing beside them.
And the receptionist exhaled with the quiet relief of a man who’d just narrowly avoided something he’d never be able to explain to HR.
Lizzie leaned back against the desk, crossed one boot over the other, and began to clap. Slowly. Each clap landing like a period at the end of a sentence.
"Woooww," she said. "Look who finally decided to show up."
The words were playful on the surface. Underneath them was something sharper, aimed specifically at Kurt, gift-wrapped in a grin so he couldn’t complain about it.
They crossed the floor toward her and Kurt opened his mouth. "Lizzie, I—"
Before he could finish, she was already moving, circling them like a shark, eyes moving over each of them and taking inventory.
Then she stopped directly in front of Riley, tilting her head and staring straight into the Minari’s face from inches away, unblinking.
Riley’s eye twitched. A bead of sweat traced its way down her temple, and she turned very slowly toward Cassandra with an expression that asked, plainly, what the hell is wrong with her?
Cassandra said nothing. Which was its own answer.
Lizzie took it up a notch as she started poking them with her index finger. First, Kurt’s shoulder, then Cassandra’s chest, and once on Riley’s cheek, like she was confirming if they were real.
"...Ya sure took your time," she said finally, stepping away as abruptly as she’d closed in.
Then she spun on her heel and marched toward the elevator without waiting for an answer, clearly expecting them to follow, and they did.
"What, you forget where we stay?" She said without looking back. "Or just... forgot me?"
That last part wasn’t for all of them. Kurt knew exactly who it was addressed to because he felt it land like a gut punch.
Kurt scratched the back of his neck as they piled into the elevator. "It’s a really long story..."
"Really." Lizzie stared at him, then ran her hand across every single button on the panel, lighting them all up in sequence, before finally jabbing the second floor. "Now we have time."
The doors closed and the elevator ascended, one floor at a time because Lizzie had pressed them all.
She crouched down without warning and grabbed Riley’s tail, examining it like a new toy. "Soft."
Riley’s eye twitched again. "You’ve got a problem with personal space, don’t you, Blondie?" Then she yanked her tail free with a sharp tug. "And I don’t like being touched."
Lizzie hummed, tilting her head up at her from her crouched position. "Then we’ve got something in common."
"We really don’t," Riley said.
Kurt watched this from the back of the elevator and let out a long-suffering sigh. "This is going to be a bloody long ride."
Ding!
The doors finally opened on the second floor, and Lizzie stepped out first, already rambling at full speed, not bothering to check if they were keeping up.
"So you get arrested, pretend to be an Untouched, meet new people, stage a prison break, fight a robot, die, attract a monster from the actual ocean, fall from space, land in a crater, go to Cassandra’s mansion, and eat pastries." She took a deep breath. "That all?"
Kurt stepped off the elevator. "That’s pretty much it."
"Cool," she said.
The noise hit them first. The chorus of screaming voices, metal creaking, air vibrating.
Then Kurt looked up and immediately forgot what he was going to say next.
Emma and Rook were sitting opposite each other at a reinforced steel table, hands interlocked, elbows planted, eyes locked in pure competitive fire.
Paul stood at the side, hands hovering over both their hands as he played the role of referee while guild members shouted from behind him.
"We take the A-rank quest if I win," Emma said with a feral grin that showed too many teeth.
Rook simply smiled, calm as ever. "Give it your best. But if I win, we turn it down."
Paul released their arms and yelled, "Begin!"
The table dented instantly beneath their elbows as shockwaves blasted outward, rattling nearby chairs and nearly knocking Kurt back into the elevator.
He planted his feet and watched as Emma’s hands ignited. A pair of serrated gauntlets materializing across her arms.
<No. 8. Blood King>
"This bad boy is directly connected to my circulatory and nervous system," she explained and squeezed.
The spikes along the gauntlet grew and stabbed into Rook’s hand and his blood began flowing into it, converting blood to power as the gauntlet glowed.
"Not bad," Rook said calmly and meant it.
From the point of contact at his elbow, his skin began turning metallic silver, spreading upward until just his arm was transformed.
The blood flow stopped dead, and Rook pushed back as Emma’s arm tilted the other way.
"Looks like your luck’s run out," Rook said, still calm, still smiling.
Emma’s grin widened, excited to reveal her second ace. "Who said it just had to be my opponent’s blood?"
The gauntlet responded. Inward spines extended from the gauntlet’s housing, connecting to Emma’s veins, and her face tightened for a fraction of a second at the contact.
Her own blood now was cycling through the weapon and back into her as energy. She powered up instantly and the gauntlet blazed.
Rook felt it immediately. The pressure surging through Emma’s grip doubled, then surged again, and his silver-coated arm trembled with the redistribution of force.
"Fucking fall!" she roared, forcing Rook’s arm back upright inch by inch.
Kurt stood outside of the elevator with Cassandra, Riley, and Lizzie, watching the structural integrity of the table become a secondary concern.
The light in the room was flickering in time with the gauntlet’s pulses that made it seem like it was alive, and nobody in the immediate vicinity looked particularly safe.
He glanced sideways. Cassandra was watching with precise stillness, probably picturing herself in that situation.
Riley was also staring at the two of them with her ears flat. "Is this normal?"
"You have no idea," Kurt answered as he tucked a cigarette behind his ear and rubbed his face. "Ah. I’ve missed this."
Lizzie straightened and clapped her hands together once. "Ya two done measuring dicks yet? We’ve got actual news."
Emma didn’t even look away from Rook, she just kept pushing. "News can wait. This is important."
Rook’s silver arm pushed harder. "It really is."
The steel table groaned under the pressure as the entire room vibrated with the force of two monsters pretending to be people.