Lizbet scanned the scene.

  The baton smacked menacingly into the officer’s palm in a slow steady rhythm as the stand-off ensued. A slight wind picked up around the Asian guy in the suit; several paper cranes flew around him as his tie blew upwards. He kept a hand behind his back. Cranes continued to manifest and fly around him. She wasn’t sure what they did, but she didn’t want to find out. The tall man had shields ready and had taken a tense fighting stance as -was that the girl they killed earlier!? It couldn’t be! She looked way too short.

  Her attention diverted to the thin girl who bounced around on her heels with her fists raised. The boy nearby had dirt or small rocks tightly wound and floating in spherical formation above his palms. What if his power was similar to hers? These people had taken down the berserker for a reason. What were they even thinking charging in to demand food like this!? Even that chubby middle-aged woman with the thorn tattoos on her arm scowled as she made a fist.

  None of this could work, Lizbet thought, they had picked off a bunch of chumps by suprise and gained some power. But even with their training, they couldn’t handle this many people.

  Several contestants from the queue approached cautiously. Janele stood still but her hand crept toward her belt for the knife.

  “I said freeze!” Mark commanded.

  His eagle eye activated whenever it came to the possibility of anyone reaching for a weapon.

  “Janele! We can’t win this! Let’s make a deal and get out of here,” Lizbet said.

  “You stupid! You just said my name, now these people can look us up, LIZBET!”

  Lizbet put her free hand in front of her mouth. But this was for the best, they would die if Janele insisted on a fight here. And she still had some supplies in her picnic bag should they leave empty handed.

  “I’d listen to your friend, JANELE!” Carson said.

  “You!” Mark barked at Megan while pointing with his baton as she cowered behind Darrone, “Make yourself useful and look those two up, Janele and Lizbet.”

  Megan took a step back and saluted, “Yes, yes sir!”

  She remained behind Darrone’s protection and summoned her holographic interface with the name index.

  Janele and Lizbet held their ground, but they had too many people to keep track of and now their powers would soon be revealed. Several people who weren’t in combat stance checked the index and shared the information. The queue lit with index screens. Janele spit.

  Janele Belo

  Daddy Issues

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Lizbet Rodriguez

  Compulsive Gambler

  Now Janele took a moment to think. Seeing her name and her stats appear on several different screens didn’t reassure her. Lizbet looked shaken and who knew how that would affect her accuracy when they would need the attacks to kill. This wasn’t an ambush where they had the upper hand and the lie that they could take out a multitude in one shot had been uncovered by those stupid indexes. What was the purpose in everyone knowing about everyone else's power? Even with a good first attack, too many people would close in and overwhelm them. But Janele didn’t want to appear weak. At the very least they couldn’t read mana, health, stamina, and sanity bars without being shown them directly. So, they wouldn’t know that both of them were running on a quarter of a mana bar.

  Lizbet slightly raised her hand with the pile of silver coins, “I can take out two people instantly with my attack. Who wants to take a bet that it won’t be them?”

  The bluff sent people backing into the line to hide behind others for cover. Janele knew the coins could miss, as she'd seen them fail to finish multiple times. The team facing them didn’t flinch. The Asian man continued manifesting flying cranes as the hoodie boy increased the size of his floating dirt collection. Three members of the line stood firm in the open behind them. The chubby lady with the tattoos held her ground with an angry stance. An intimidating woman with flaming hair and eyes formed balls of fire in both hands. She wore a yellow bandeau with a flame logo. Her pants were baggy and she looked like something out of a fighting anime. The outfit displayed the muscular arms and abs of a power lifter's physique.

  Nearby was an Asian woman who looked like the main character of a horror movie with her long black hair and pale skin. She stood angrily with arms akimbo as she shook her head. Her outfit didn't match her appearance because it was some pink and cutesy dress with ribbons, though burns and frayed threads covered the fabric.

  Janele returned her focus to the gringo who kept slapping his baton like he was made of steel and narrowed her eyes. Her father’s words played in her head: The iron gets struck when it’s hot and then we take two eyes for an eye. The iron felt cold to the touch right now, frozen. They were surrounded by cold irons.

  “You heard her pig cop,” Janele said, “Give us two boxes each and we’ll leave peacefully. We're on the same team after all. Honorary demonians should stick together, right? What good is being on the same team if we can't negotiate a bit? Why kill each other over some boxes? Am I right?”

  “Okay, teammates. One box each,” Mark said, “And then I want you to walk slowly into one of those portals with your hands where I can see them.”

  Janele took a deep, deep, breath through her nose. She would be seeing this pig again, of that she was certain.

  “Fine.”

  The boxed arced in the air and Janele caught them with no problem. After catching the boxes she put her hands above her shoulders, but still held the food. Lizbet’s boxes landed at her feet. A small flock of various colored roaches flew past as she bent to pick them up with one hand and stuff them in her bag. The coins stayed tightly clenched in the other. Janele and Lizbet backed away from the group, so many eyes on them. They became the stars of the show. Janele refused to turn her back on the crowd and kept her eyes trained on Mark all the way to portal number five. Lizbet went first, her face lit with a slight smile as she entered the portal. Janele remained serious. They disappeared in a swirl of purple smokey energy.

  An assortment of crawling bright blues, oranges, reds, greens, and yellows skittered over the portal doors.