“What is it?” Moira’s quizzical expression showed actual confusion.

“So, first off, I wanna apologize,” Rave responded, and John felt the need to clean his ears out. Regardless of how shocked he and Moira were, the techno lover was serious about this. “Back when that whole Bloodfallen thing was going on, I blamed ya for stuff because I just wanted it to be true that Collide was just working as it always was. That wasn’t fair. Sorry about that.”

“Apology accepted,” the Warden responded, showing a smile like someone that had come home after a rainy day to find a cup of hot chocolate already greeting them. “You seem a lot less confrontational since I last met you.”

A suddenly appearing Copernicus hopped onto the table. “You might want to hold your horses with the impression,” the suncat announced as he strolled over the surface, only to jump off at the other side and casually sit down at the edge of the dry floor.

“Ya see, Moira, I kinda want to fight you right now,” Rave opened up, clearing up what Copernicus meant. “Like, not because I’m still mad at you and your sanctimonious ways or anything…”

“…sanctimonious…?” Moira mumbled, while her opposite continued as normal.

“…I got kinda better at handling girls with sticks in their bums over the past year…”

“…stick in my… bum…?”

“…cause I’m hanging around with an actual princess, sorry, queen, that takes things way too seriously all the time and all that.”

“Yeah… sure…” Now Moira looked like that cup of hot chocolate had turned out to be some lukewarm, murky dishwater, something she only realized after taking a sip. “So, what excuse do you want to give me to bash your head in?”

“I wanna reclaim the right to call you by whatever nickname I want.”

“You want to… what now?” Moira had to ask for clarification.

“A year ago, when we duked it out because I thought you were the kind of person that would set a bunch of Trap Barriers up to have us attacked and you wanted to reduce talking to me to a minimum, we made a bet. Ya would tell us whatever ya knew about who is messing with us if I won and I would have to ‘address you like a normal person’ if you won. And you won. Ya still told us what ya knew, but a bet is a bet.”

“And you held to that outcome for the entire year?”

“She did, in all public and private conversations,” John backed up the nodding of his girlfriend. “I honestly thought it was kind of silly at times, but my girl is an honest one, if nothing else.”

“I’m a lot of things, including awesome!” she complained.

“Awesome, radical and gorgeous,” the Gamer confirmed with a smile. He couldn’t keep any insults, even playful ones, up for too long.

“…I just do not get you.” Moira let out an exasperated groan. “You have honour over something like this, yet your usual reaction to my mere presence was to throw multi-coloured punches in my general direction.”

“Ya always came in with things like: ‘you aren’t allowed to be here, the Order must ensure the Natural Barrier gets cleaned correctly’ or ‘I cannot believe you would buy marijuana’ or ‘your petty crimes are an obstruction that will get you into bigger troubles one day’, or other sanctimonious BS like that,” Rave responded.

“We did, I couldn’t and they did,” Moira asserted. “Must I remind you of the troubles that can be caused for mundane people if a Natural Barrier is not cleaned properly? What if the drug had numbed your mind to the point that you used magic in the streets?”

“Spoken like someone who never ever was high.” Rave rolled her eyes.

Moira ignored that. “Your petty crimes eventually did cause you to ally with the Bloodfallen – or perhaps subjecting yourself to them is more accurate - and do I have to remind you how that worked out for you?”

“Life has its ups and downs,” Rave responded flippantly.

“Life has its… dozens of people died! Including Travolta!”

“Yeah, well, I lived, I learned and I moved on.”

“Lived, learned and moved on…?” Moira repeated after, slowly, for a second time in a row, flabbergasted. “I… urgh, yes, I actually forgot that talking to you made me feel like this.” She rubbed her temples as if she had a bad headache. “Are you just callous to the loss of life or are you just terrible at expressing yourself?”

“John insists I’m bad at explaining, so it’s probably the latter,” Rave conceded.

That was the second time in this conversation that Moira was surprised, this time around, John was just quietly observant. ‘Those two really aren’t made to get along, but at least they both improved a little bit on the patience front,’ he thought and looked over at his girlfriend. ‘My Jane improved more, of course.’

Moira lowered her hands. “I see,” she simply commented and sighed. “I probably should know better than to push back this hard, given your stupidly carefree attitude.”

“Or ya shouldn’t talk about the devil’s lettuce as if ya knew what it did,” the Lightbearer bantered back. “Anyway, I want to duel you, to get the right back to call you by your old nickname. Ya game or not?”

“What’s in it for me?” Moira wanted to know.

“No clue, suggest something.” Rave gestured around. “I won’t agree to everything. Even I know this is kinda stupid. Still, there’s something small ya could want that I could give ya.”

Playing with the pendant around her neck, the redhead hummed in thought. “If I win…” she said slowly, still figuring things out, “…I want you… yes, I want you to give me a tour of your home base, when I have the time. You will guarantee my safety and you’ll have to be nice to me the entire time. I figure that’s about as much pain for you as it would be for me to hear you say that ridiculous nickname again.”

“Personally, I think Moi-Moi is kind of adorable,” John threw his hat into the ring and got himself the kind of smiting glance that would have made Lydia take notes on how to improve her evil glare. “Message received,” he apologized and shut his mouth.

“We have a deal.” Rave smirked, offering her hand to shake on it. “I should warn ya though, I’ve improved a lot since we last fought. Not sure if your Innate Ability will keep up with things.”

“I… no, I’ll just take a page out of your book and let this next part be a surprise.” Moira decided and took the offer. A moment later, she said, “We should at least take this into another Illusion Barrier. I neither feel like devastating this beach nor like someone snap photos and make this some sort of headline.”

“Good call,” John agreed and so they left, went a bit further up the beach and set up their own little barrier. Once there, he gave Rave her headphones. “I don’t think either of you wants any extra rules for this, do you?” His answer came in the shape of both opponents quietly walking several steps away. “I figured.” Since things were about to get messy, the Gamer retreated to the edge of the barrier with a few backwards steps.

Lorelei followed that imperative, both of them retreating to a safe distance. Well, about as safe as John thought it could get. When it came to his own safety, the Gamer wasn’t too bothered, Particle Skin would neutralize any stray attack that could have come his direction.

“Not to be rude or anything,” John spoke up, “but would you say it’s safe for you to be around?”

“The Lady would warn me if great danger was coming my way,” Lorelei responded and folded her hands before her stomach in a diligent fashion. Although she had no eyes to fixate on him, she turned her head to look at him. As someone who used magical help to overcome his own blindness, the Gamer wasn’t surprised. “For small dangers, I would be grateful for your protection. The Lady has blessed me, but not with combat prowess like the rest of you. I suppose in comparison to you I’m rather… fragile.”

John nodded and two of his elementals manifested soon thereafter. “Undine, stay ready to heal anyone, should there be any mishaps. Gnome, you, Aclysia and Beatrice should make sure that nothing hits her. Is it okay if I just call you Lorelei?”

“For someone as blessed by the Lady as you are, my name is more than enough, Gamer.” Lorelei didn’t use his title as any sort of mockery, but instead spoke it with veneration. It felt like the difference between a religious person speaking about a Matthew and the apostle Matthew. “You may call me Lorelei, Varnik, Miss Varnik or Seer Varnik, whatever you prefer.”

“I will stick to Lorelei then, and John will also suffice,” the Gamer assured her.

“I, uhm,” Lorelei shifted around a bit in an adorably awkward fashion, “I can attempt to call you so, but please understand that my first instinct is to use your honorific title. It is the expectation of my line to be respectful servants of those carrying the Lady’s approval.”

“Suggestion: refer to him as ‘Master’,” Beatrice chimed in.

Now the seer turned beet red. “I could never… I mean I could, but… no, that wouldn’t be appropriate.” Her supernatural inspection intensified to the point where John could actually feel it. The moment he started to get annoyed by this, it ceased. “My apologies, I did not mean to upset you.” Her tone was innocently honest, leaving him with little choice but to forgive her for the minor transgression. “I was simply curious. I’m not used to people paying this much attention to me.”

“How? You’re beautiful.” John didn’t skip a beat in presenting that fact. He had long since graduated from being the virgin that blurted these things out on accident. Now he made the compliment in an earnest tone, even with a bit of confusion. A beautiful woman was a beautiful woman, after all.

“You flatter me, honoured Gamer.” Lorelei smiled, continuing to blush.

“What were you trying to see in my aura anyway?” the Gamer wondered. “No, let me rephrase that, what CAN you see in my aura? If you’re allowed to tell me?”

“I tried to see your intentions. I sense that you have desires for my body and you wear those plainly, but it is unusual to find such carnal desires without sinister emotions. Yet your aura is… it’s the proud purple of a king that is certain in his missions, wearing shadows as they’re needed, and it is the gold of an honest man, that stands for what he believes and wants to unite what is selfish with what is selfless.” She tilted her head. “There are many other facets to it, but those are the most pronounced. You’re the first man of such intense gold and purple I have ever seen, and you’re clad in clothes blessed by the Lady herself. I have…” She blushed again, even heavier than before, being as red as tomato at this point. “…No, that is knowledge I cannot share before I have confirmed it.”

John decided not to press her on that last sentence and instead activated his aura sight to look at his own hands. Steadily rising and flickering around him, like a mixture of smoke and fire, was the intense blue of arcane energy, with the occasional flicker of elemental undercurrents. “Your aura sensibility is a lot more developed than mine. So, you can read the true character of a person?”

She shook her head. “I can see the parts that make you up, combining it into a correct sum is no less difficult for me than it is for everyone else. Although I admittedly work with better information. I can see your power and I can read what entity it originates from. While the light of the Lady shines in all of us, her wise guidance leads some of us more than others.”

Looking over, John now saw Lorelei’s own aura. It was a snow white with silver undertones and surrounded her like a frozen raindrop. It was beautiful, in many ways, but something about it felt like a cold responsibility. Intrigued, the Gamer moved his eyes onto the two opponents.

They had been chatting, just as John and Lorelei had, standing five steps apart from each other. His girlfriend had an aura that continuously flickered in multiple colours that overlapped and formed more intricate ones. Had it been actual light, she would have needed to carry around a seizure warning with her at all times. That sight was known, just as John knew that it became sunlight gold when she used Copernicus’ Unleash to strengthen herself. The entire thing moved steadily around her, as if she was standing in the centre of a candle flame.

Moira’s magical presence in the world was rigid. A perfect sphere that surrounded her equally, on all sides. It had the colour of raw Faith, the energy of Gaia, triangles of rainbow colours dancing under the translucent, white shell that surrounded her. A wall of purity guarded immense power, bestowed by the supreme deity herself, so her aura seemed to say.

Blinking, John deactivated his aura sight. It was still a fairly useless tool, giving him nice and distracting visuals that translated into any number of interpretations. The only reason why he could even see that much from the people present was their evident power levels.

It seemed that their exchange of words had come to an end. Rave sprouted her cat ears and Moira pulled her pendant off her chain. In a clenched fist, she raised it upwards, and shouted something that doubtlessly contained the word ‘Lady’.

A beam of light descended from nowhere, blew away the wet sand under and around her, and temporarily hid the Warden from view. Rave was forced back a step and even John felt the gust of wind travel over his face. The light vanished left as quick as it had come, leaving Moira standing there in full battle regalia.

Her armour and weaponry were dazzling. Meticulously clean and polished, the interlocking plates glittered with supernatural light, forged with golden, silver and light grey metals. Doubtlessly, Elementium and its lesser parts were in use. The entire set exuded the holy authority of a paladin. Where the plates didn’t cover her, primarily at the joints and the legs that had been left surprisingly lightly armoured, the underlying dark red bodysuit became visible. A tabard that displayed an intricate golden rose decorated her torso, but even that cloth did nothing to obscure the fact that the armour was sitting as if the metal had been poured onto her.

Her warhammer was a massive thing and different from what John remembered. The shaft was as long as her entire arm and the head segmented in three areas. One side had the proper, weighted head, a square block of silver metal that could crush anything under its flat surface. The backside was a curved spike, perfect to punch through armour, and on the end of it all sat a thorn that gave thrusting attacks a viable lethality. Although it was a brilliant and polished weapon in appearance, its fundamental design was murderous. In all due likelihood, she had changed her old hammer for this one over the past year, be it due to growing physical ability or wear and tear.

Something about her shield was different from the rest of her equipment. Although it, too, looked different than the one John remembered, he wasn’t as sure that she had exchanged this one. It had the same aura. As someone who had seen, and wielded, more than one transforming item in his time, John decided to run with his hunch and assume that instead.

It was a giant thing, a tower shield only slightly smaller than she was. It was a lean piece of armoury, curving into a broader centre and then narrowing again, ending in a tip that resembled a flattened V. At the middle of the front unfolded a large, golden rose, as if seen from above, surrounded by wing-like decorations.

The glow of the shield was more intense than anything else of her blessed armour. It even seemed like every last bit of glamour that covered her originated, in some shape, from that shield.

Although John was used to superhuman feats by now, seeing her move around effortlessly with those giant pieces of equipment was impressive. Neither size nor weight seemed to hinder her. She turned around her warhammer and let it stand in the sand for a moment, while her hand reached into the back of her shield. It was similar to how John retrieved items from his inventory.

A simple hairband was taken out and the shield dropped from Moira’s arm, as if loosened by a mental command. The pointy tip split the sand and the shield stubbornly stood straight, despite the ground’s softness and its own, outwards curved shape demanding that being those few centimetres into the sand wasn’t enough to escape the pull of gravity. The clearly magical shield didn’t care and continued to stand, until Moira had bound her red hair up into a ponytail. Once the Warden grabbed the handle at the back of the silver shield, straps appeared that let her lift it in a stable fashion. John followed all of that through the eyes of Sylph, who had gotten bored and was now zapping around as his effective camera.