The tension in the room thickened. Just about everyone was watching the standoff, with conversations gradually dying as heads turned toward them.
lisa felt her smile transform into sothing else entirely. Not a grimace, not a snarl—but the kind of smile that said she was done playing pretend. The kind of smile that had been waiting so long to show itself.
[Well, on the bright side, finally. No more 'lanie.' No more nodding along to this revolutionary bullshit.]
"Well?" Koros demanded, his fist clenching on the counter. "Nothing to say, Blackfla?"
lisa tilted her head slightly, studying him with the sa casual interest one might give to an insect before deciding whether to let it live or squash it.
"You know, I'm actually relieved," she said, her voice dropping the high-pitched enthusiastic voice she'd been using. "Pretending to be interested in your half-baked fantasies was getting exhausting."
Vira's face behind the counter had gone slack with shock. The glass she was polishing froze mid-rotation.
"M-lanie? What the fuck is he talking about?"
lisa's eyes flicked to Vira montarily, a flicker of sothing genuine crossing her expression before hardening again.
"Sorry, Vira," she said a tad softly, genuinely aning that. "No lanie here." She shrugged. "Just your friendly neighborhood nim sorceress. That's ."
The shock on Vira's face almost made lisa wish she could take this back.
Koros barked out a laugh, though it held no humor.
"You've got so nerve showing up. Though, I guess hearing that we were going to ss with your friends was a big enough deal to get you to stop sucking human dick for a few seconds, huh? Who would have seen that coming?"
One of Koros's goons smirked, while the other looked like he was ntally calculating how quickly he could reach the exit and was actively trying to inch closer and closer to it.
[Smart guy.]
"'ssing with' is a funny way to say 'trying to murder,'" lisa replied, her tone conversational despite the deadly glint in her eyes. "First my parents' house, now so of my closest friends? Did you think I was just going to sit back and let that happen?"
Vira was still struggling to process everything, her hands gripping the edge of the counter.
"M-lanie, what are you s—"
"Vira, for fuck's sake, she's not lanie!" Koros cut her off sharply. "She's the traitor. The one who works for the new queen. The one who's been fucking humans while our people suffer."
lisa's death stare flickered for a mont, replaced by sothing softer as she looked at Vira.
"I'm not kidding, Vira," she admitted. "I'm lisa Blackfla. And, I'm here for justice."
That actually got a laugh out of Koros.
"Justice?" He took a step closer, his height forcing lisa to look up at him. "What do you know about justice? What have you done for the nim getting beaten in the streets? For the ones still enslaved in noble houses? For the children who discovered magic and were killed for it?" Each question landed like a blow. "You've done nothing."
The bar had gone completely silent now. Every eye was on them, every breath held.
lisa sighed.
She didn't back down. If anything, that dangerous glint in her eyes just intensified.
"For the record, I'm the reason you even know about that last one... But, maybe you're right," she said quietly. "Maybe 'justice' isn't the right word."
She looked around the room, at all the nim faces watching with varying degrees of hope, fear, and confusion. Then back to Koros, her lips curving into a smile that promised violence.
"Maybe the right word is 'revenge.'"
Suddenly, silence.
The word hung in the air like a blade about to fall. Several patrons shifted nervously. No doubt rumors of the arson lisa ntioned earlier had circulated this place. The mont so of these people heard that, it was clear to a lot of them how this would go.
Koros's goons took defensive stances, one reaching for what was probably a concealed weapon. Vira remained frozen, her gaze darting between her brother and the woman she'd been flirting with—the woman who was now revealing herself as sothing entirely different.
"... You think you can take all of us?" Koros gestured around the room. "You're outnumbered, Blackfla. Even with your fancy magic."
lisa's smile widened. She felt her Essence coursing through her, the familiar tingle of power aching to be poured into spellsigns, and an exhilarating rush that ca with knowing she was about to unleash chaos.
Part of her—the part that still rembered being plain old Alice, sitting at a desk writing code—was horrified at how much she was enjoying this mont.
"Oh Koros," she said, her voice almost tender. " being outnumbered? That just makes it fair."
One of the burlier goons took that as his cue.
He lunged forward with a roar that was probably ant to be intimidating but sounded more like a cow with indigestion. lisa sidestepped him with the casual grace of soone avoiding a puddle, her fingers tracing a quick spellsign in the air.
"Ventus, spirare, propella!"
The air around her hand condensed and shot forward in a spiral, catching the goon square in the chest. He flew backward with comical speed, smashing into a table that splintered beneath him like wet cardboard. He didn't get up.
Two more rushed her from different angles, apparently thinking that basic strategy might work where brute force had failed. The first swung a bottle at her head; the second had what looked like a rusty knife.
lisa ducked the bottle, which shattered against the wall behind her, then caught the knife-wielder's wrist. She twisted until sothing popped, her smile never faltering as he howled in pain.
"Ignis, core, protev in!"
A shimring shield of fla burst into existence, catching them both off-guard before lisa decided not to fix what wasn't broken, using the sa Wind Magic to knock both attackers back. The one with the now-dislocated wrist scrambled away on his ass, while his friend staggered to his feet, only to find himself face-to-face with lisa's outstretched palm.
"Illumi, nerca, var fal!"
A blue fla projectile hit him squarely between the eyes. He crumpled to the floor, screaming his lungs out.
She turned back to Koros, whose confident sneer had faltered into sothing more uncertain.
Her eyes glead with a feeling that was almost primal.
[Oh, I am going to enjoy this.]
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