Teleport the Devil

Fiona's house, One hour later.

Inside her room, Fiona threw herself onto her bed. Her face buried in the pillow.

"...so frustrating," she mumbled.

Her day can't get any worse. First, her partner Gloria didn't show up, forcing her to patrol alone. And then this happened. 

"That girl is most likely still sleeping," Fiona grumbled. 

"that silly girl often goes to the bar and drinks a lot. What a lousy partner," Fiona thought.

But thinking about Gloria was not something she really need to do right now. She grab her phone.

She took a deep breath And started typing something.

[When will you get back?] Fiona sent a message.

Notification. A reply appeared.

[Probably next week. Dealing with government officials was a pain.]

The girl smiled faintly.

[I see, good luck with your work.]

[Thanks.] another reply came.

Not long after, a new message arrived.

[So... Did you need something?]

Fiona was delighted. Her leader noticed her uneasiness.

[It's... Nothing.] 

She sighed. She can't tell him. Not yet.

if Fiona act recklessly she might end up dead, or she will experience something worse than death. The girl shivers, thinking about it.

This is too big of a problem to send via text. If she going to tell Jasper, she need to talk about it directly with him.

The girl stared at the ceiling, dreading tomorrow to come because she had no other choice but to betray her friends.

---

The next day. Foridian Cafe.

Fiona walks toward the table on the corner of the building where Noah is already waiting.

"Welcome, welcome," Noah said. "Good decision to actually come as promised."

The girl sighed as she sat down. "Do I have a choice?"

Noah shrugged. "You can always run away," he said. "Though it's useless against me. I can always pick you up at your home anytime I want."

Fiona got a chill down her spine.

"You know where I live...?" she asked.

"Maybe," Noah replied, smirking.

"You... Stalking me?" Fiona said in disbelief. She was sweating.

"Did he follow me yesterday?" she thought. "I didn't notice at all! How much does he know?"

"Forget about that," Noah said, waving his hand. "That's not why we are here. Tell me something useful."

This is it. Finally, the moment she dreaded since yesterday. 

The girl gulped. "Okay..."

"We started our activity around six months ago," the girl began. "At the beginning, we banding together just to protect ourselves so we wouldn't get exploited or attacked by bad superpower user."

Noah smiled. "Like me?" 

Fiona want to say yes but she decided to ignore him. 

"But then our leader noticed that more and more normal people were getting into trouble because of our kind," she continued. "He then proposed our new goal, to not only protect ourselves but also to protect everyone else."

Noah whistled. "Such a heroic figure. "

Fiona was annoyed with Noah's mockery, but again she tried to ignore it.

"We then called ourselves 'Arcane Keepers.' Right now, officially, we have 22 members," she said. "All of them have superpowers."

Noah crossing his hand. 

"That's more that I expected, he said. Though numbers not always mean a good thing. Continue. 

"They... all work separately, in several smaller groups," she continued. "Each member works in pairs, usually, because it's too dangerous to do things alone. Things can go bad quickly--"

"Like what happened to you right now?" Noah said, smiling happily.

The girl sighed. "Yes..."

"What happened to your partner?" Noah asked.

"She was... um..." the girl looked unsure about what to say.

"Come on, do you really need to protect her when she the reason got you into trouble?" Noah said.

Fiona sighed. "I don't want to hear that from you." 

Noah smiled. "Why not? It's the truth, though?"

Fiona looked uneasy, but then she said, "Her name was Gloria. I didn't really like her. She never took things seriously. If our leader didn't ask me directly to pair up with her, I would have already ditched her."

Noah nodded his head. "Sounds like an annoying partner."

The way Noah seemed to sympathize with her made Fiona want to continue ranting. But even if she didn't like her partner, she still didn't feel right exposing her to him like this.

"That's right," the girl thought. "He was not my friend. What am I even doing?"

"Anyway!" Fiona said, trying to change the subject. "Our bigger group is stationed at Cardio City. Obviously because it's bigger place than this town, but especially because there's a criminal group with superpowers starting to gain power there."

"Criminal group?" Noah said.

The girl nodded. "They call themselves 'Joker Roulette.' usually, most people who awakened their powers worked alone. But we believe that they started creating a group when we started hunting them. And they are the biggest group yet."

"Aha, so you guys are creating your own enemy?" Noah said, looking delighted.

"I guess..." Fiona said, feeling the irony.

She get tangled with noah too because she patrolling trying to stop superpowers user to use their power to harm others. Even though what they're doing was a good thing, their action still had consequences. 

"We clash with this group constantly," she continued. 

The girl looked relieved when she talked about that group of criminals, probably because for a moment she didn't need to leak information about her allies.

Noah noticed it, but he didn't say anything. Mostly because he was interested in this criminal group too. 

The other reason was that watching her desperate attempt to minimize damage to her group was fun.

The girl almost talked more, but she was stopped by Noah himself.

"For today, I'm already satisfied," he said. "You don't need to tell me more."

"What?" She said. 

This confused her.

Isn't all of this because he wants information from her? Then why did he stop her like this? She can't understand him at all.

"And you don't need to come here tomorrow," Noah said, stand up from his chair. "Let's see... three days from now we will meet again."

"Three days...?" Fiona repeating what noah said. 

Fiona wondered why he decided to do this, but her curiosity was overshadowed by the feeling of relief that she didn't need to deal with him for next couple of days.

---