Several days after Max's breakthrough, he found himself back at the Trifecta guild. This time, instead of going up the back way like he had before, he decided to enter through the lobby. It still wasn’t exactly the most prudent thing to do, but with his plans for the day, prudent wasn’t really on the menu.

  Might as well kick everything off by starting bold and just roll with it.

  Blackmist Incident as minimized on his waist, but a casual observer could still tell that he was a Challenger. He wore a backpack, but not a normal backpack today. This time, he was wearing the Weight Reduction Adventurer Pack, MK 4. He’d found a function to “deflate” it, and it was lying comfortably flat against his back.

  He had on some basic armor, more for the look than functionality. Additionally, he carried a dagger against his lower back, and Bracelets of Bloody Arrows, an artifact from the dungeon in the Quartet just like his backpack.

  Now that he was a four-star mana body, he had spent time reacquainting himself with his four-star Blade Sorcerer power and perfecting his weapons. He had also made a decent number of new beads for himself using his greater mana limit and efficiency.

  As the guards approached, Max held up his Challenger ID. One of the guards looked at a tablet and raised his eyebrows upon seeing Max's permissions in the Trifecta Guild. The guard's mouth moved as if he was about to say something, but Max quietly said, "Don't say a thing. Keep your mouth shut for one day about this." The guard's mouth closed with a click, and the other guard wisely chose not to say anything, either.

  Walking through the lobby to the elevators, Max glanced around but didn't recognize anyone. The handful of people he saw were either low-level Trifecta Guild adventurers or support staff. He could identify the latter from the complete lack of any kind of supernatural threat he felt. Of course, he wasn't going to completely rely on his abilities to detect danger, and kept his guard up throughout the building.

  Right before he got on the elevator, he actually spotted someone he knew. Blake looked older now, maybe even a little tired. Max’s friend had a scar on his face now, too. He was wearing armor, and had a big sword on his back.

  Blake did a double take, and a number of emotions flickered across his face, but the elevator doors closed before he could call out Max's name.

  Well, I guess it's going to get out one way or another now, Max thought to himself. Good thing I'm not hiding anymore."

  He felt like a dick for not talking to Blake, but he didn’t have time now. In his experience, if the day might end with bloodshed, it was better not to let anything shake his resolve on the way.

  Max made it up to the level of Chad's office and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” said Chad.

  The moment Max walked in, Chad nodded and moved to the side door leading to a private meeting room. This was a familiar ritual for Max now. The only thing different than before was how now the Trifecta guild leader was wearing athletic gear instead of formal clothes.

  Once they were in the meeting room, Chad plunked down a laptop on the table, sat, and steepled his fingers. "So, you're really going to do this today, huh?"

  "Sure am."

  "Okay, so be it."

  Max sat and tapped the table with his index finger in thought. "Did you do everything I asked?"

  "That's right."

  "Then why did you ask me if I was really going through with it?"

  Chad snorted. "Because I'd rather risk pissing some people off and ruining my own reputation than watching you possibly die."

  Max smiled, but it was more of a grimace. "I really don't think you have to worry about that."

  "So sure.." muttered Chad under his breath. Then he tsked and started reading items from his laptop. "I've alerted the press. They should be there soon. Law enforcement has been alerted as well. You should have police, fire department, and even paramedics on site. Patriot Guild is on the move. They will not be interfering, but they will join the cops to make sure that nobody comes in to interrupt. And they will make sure the cops don’t do anything stupid, either.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “I have the email you sent me, and I'll forward it to your mom as soon as everything kicks off. I messaged the American military command with the message you wanted me to pass on. I also did the handful of other things you asked, including wiring some money to your family."

  "Good," said Max. "And thank you. Oh, I'm pretty sure Blake saw me downstairs, so I'm not going back down the way I came up. I ignored him once, I’m not going to do it again. Gotta avoid it."

  "Why did you come here in the first place?" asked Chad. "Couldn't you have just called me?"

  Max gave him a grimace smile again and said, "It is true that I might not walk away from this. Granted, I don’t think it’s likely, but you just never know. So if it all goes south, I wanted to talk in person. Otherwise I thought you would feel even more guilty about it."

  "Well, yeah, among other things." Chad shut his laptop and grunted. Then he closed the door to the meeting room, revealing that he had a full set of gear stashed away in the corner, previously hidden by the door. He began putting on his armor while still talking to Max. "Also, are you sure about putting the message out to the guild?"

  "Yes," said Max. "They should know. But same as the police, they shouldn’t be joining in. The easiest way to make sure that happens is to give them a heads up and tell them to stay the hell out of it."

  "Yeah, I know," said Chad.

  “So you got the press keyed up, too?”

  "Yes. We also got those extra Senders and Recon Paths from the Patriot Guild, and they'll be joining our folks as soon as I send the message out. They’re traveling with the enforcers."

  "Good," said Max with a satisfied nod. That particular order had been for Chad to ensure that recordings—both mundane via drones and supernatural using sensory Gifts through reconnaissance specialized Challengers—would capture what happened and send it to the rest of the world. Chad was helping Max do the same thing as years ago on earth–telling the media there was about to be a show.

  Once Chad was dressed and armed, he picked up his last few pieces of gear, all defensive in nature. After all, even though he wasn't going to be doing any fighting himself, it was prudent to prepare for some stray or intentional shots.

  "So I can finally tell my brother what is going on now, right?”

  “Of course. The entire guild is going to know soon, too.”

  “And are you sure you don't want me to alert the Agency?" asked Chad.

  "I'm sure.” Max had decided not to get in bed with the Agency until he knew more about it. He stood and asked, “Are you ready?"

  "Yeah, I guess. I can't believe we're doing this."

  "Oh, wait! You forgot something," said Max.

  "What?"

  "A hard copy of those contracts that you had people sign to learn Western Wind Style and the sworn statements by the Challengers that handled the metaphysical side of that."

  "Oh yeah." Chad went to the wall, to a safe. He opened it, reached in, grabbed an envelope, and closed the safe again. Max got a bit of a glimpse inside and also felt some interesting energies from inside but chose not to ask any questions. Instead, he merely nodded his head and accepted the envelope before tucking it into his clothing somewhere safe.

  "Okay, and you have all the mana pills stowed away too?"

  "Yes," said Chad. "And that crappy martial arts manual you gave me, drawn on notebook paper. That thing seriously sucks, okay? So you can't die."

  Max grinned and patted his friend on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it. Seriously. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ve been spending the last few days basically preparing for if you die. Alone. And I couldn’t even talk to anyone about it.”

  “Need to be strong to be the guild leader! But seriously, it would be irresponsible of me not to take precautions just in case the worst happens. Careful. Believe it or not, that's always been my personality."

  "I guess I can see that. Sorta. Nah. I think you’re full of shit," said Chad. He made a face. "I hope you're ready for the fallout though. Your friends and family. If you do survive this, it's going to be rough. They’re going to be pissed. I would be."

  Max quietly admitted, I know. Believe me, I know. In fact, there's plenty of other things I'd like to do before this, and plenty of other things I would have liked to do before doing any of this. But if I don't take the steps to make the world a better place and our species ends up getting wiped out, everything else is meaningless. So certain things take priority."

  "I think I understand," said Chad. He held out his hand, and Max shook it. "From this point on, I'll stick to the script. I'm going to head there right now. Are you sure you're not coming with me?"

  "No, I'm fine," said Max. He moved to Chad's windows and fiddled with the only one that opened from the inside. It was barely enough to squeeze through, but Max did, most of his body hanging outside, before he said, "I'll be on a building nearby and come down once you get there. Take a couple of bodyguards, minimum, please. Once you’re there you can also send the message out of the guild. I’d prefer they watch what goes down on TV instead of in person. I'll see you there."

  Then Max jumped out the window before sending silent commands to Lavinia and Daliko. Almost immediately, his body was covered in alien-looking armor with four long wings that allowed him to effortlessly glide away, losing almost no altitude in the process. Behind him, he heard Chad mutter, "I can't believe this is happening," before Max was too far away to catch his friend saying anything else.

  The power inside of him seethed, begging to be used.

  He’d put up a confident front in front of Chad, but the reality was he was bracing himself for a hell of a fight. If everyone was lucky, the day would end by talking it out, but Max has a bad feeling it wouldn’t be that simple.

  The Lynch brothers really shouldn’t have been able to break their contracts, the magical versions. There were several ways they might have done so, and none of them were really good.

  He would prefer not to fight, but if he had to, he was going to see this thing through.