Walking down the busy street the girl was quite frustrated, it was her first day at Solarius academy and she had stupidly forgotten her work books, she had left them somewhere, probably sitting on her desk at the house she was staying in if her memory was correct. Fortunately, she had arrived at school an hour early because she was so excited to start, and the distance between her lodgings and the school was about a 20 minute walk so she wasn’t going to be late by any means, but still the girl was frustrated.

  Girl: “I spent 30 minutes getting ready, triple checking everything and anything and I still managed to forget stuff!… seriously I need to fix that” the girl complained in a disappointed tone.

  Indeed this was not a new or uncommon occurrence, in fact she would often forget crucial things at the most inappropriate moments. Today her saving grace was her eagerness to start school but if something like this were to happen in the future, which it most certainly will, then it would cause a whole lot of problems for her.

  Girl: “Oh, the shortcut” she exclaimed as she narrowly avoided missing the alleyway that cut off 5 or so minutes from her route… or at least it should have, had there not been a wall of crates blocking the other end of the alley.

  Girl: -Who the hell put all these crates here!? Why would you even stack crates like this!?- she thought in confusion

  Huffing out a “hmph” in indignation and ever so gracefully puffing out her cheeks the girl turned around and was surprised to see a group of men walking down the alley, at least 4 or 5 men blocked the other end of the alley maybe more, not much sunlight reached the alleyway due to the large buildings on either side and some of the men were directly behind each other and out of the girls sight so she had trouble accurately counting the number of people.

  Girl: -Where did all these people show up from? And how come I didn’t hear them approaching? That’s really careless of me-.

  “Hey!” The man closest to her happily greeted her as if they were old friends, which made her uncomfortable, “are you Sarah?” he asked with a sly smile, he was a middle aged blonde haired man with a golden tooth that somehow shined despite the lack of light.

  Girl: “Uh…? No, that's not me” Sarah replied

  Girl: -I’ll play dumb and avoid whatever this is about-.

  Blonde Man: “Ah really?”, The man said, slicking back his blonde hair, Sarah couldn’t help but notice that with his tooth and hair he really resembled a typical goon from some action or adventure movie. She desperately struggled to stop herself from laughing.

  Blonde Man: “You see, we were told to go catch a young girl named Sarah, she's a pretty little thing with dark hair, we even got photos, see!” The man excitedly pulled out some photos of a girl that was clearly her, tapping the photo with his index finger. The man’s smile grew into a nasty snarl.

  Blonde Man: “Sure looks a lot like you huh?” the man said.

  Sarah began growing frustrated

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  Sarah: “who gave creeps like you photos of me? Also on that note who even uses physical photos for kidnappings anymore? All you need is your phone, dumbass?” she rudely pointed out.

  Stunned by her reaction the man uttered out a “huh?” before receiving a bolt of blue light to his chest.

  Blonde Man: “Umph! What the hell!” the man yelled as he was sent flying backwards a few feet and landed promptly on his but.

  Blonde Man: “Ow ow ow ouch, that really hurt you bitch!” the man complained but Sarah had lost her already low interest. The two goons closest to the blonde man before he had been sent flying charged at Sarah, she pointed her finger at one of them sending out another blue bolt, it struck him squarely on his nose and with a wet and gross sounding crunch the man's nose broke and he was sent flying backwards, landing on the recovering blonde haired man.

  “Agh!” “you idiot!” The two men screamed their voices overlapping, Sarah swiftly dodged around the other charging man but when preparing to shoot another bolt she was shocked to find out she was unable to.

  Sarah -Huh?- she thought as concern washed over her, raising her head up, the goon she had avoided had a sinister snarl on his face as he held up a stone like object with a N and X engraved onto it.

  Sarah: “Ah” Panic began rising as she realised what was wrong “A nullifier” she said aloud.

  Blonde Man: “Yep!” the blonde man answered from behind “our employer explained that you were good with magic and that we should take precautions… so we did” he finished. Now that the men had spread out a bit she could clearly count that there were 5 men in front of her, plus the man behind her makes 6, so 7 including the man with the broken nose but he was rolling around on the ground howling about “Mah nosse!” so she figured he wasn’t going to reinvolve himself.

  Sarah: -how did I miscount 2 people? It’s dark, sure, but that’s literally basic addition!- She angrily berated herself, Sarah was starting to panic now, her magic skills were quite good but her physical skills were beyond bad, no way was she fighting her way out of this. Her train of thought was interrupted as she felt a strike to her stomach, sweeping her off her feet. Apparently the man holding the nullifier had crept up when she wasn’t looking and kicked her, sending her landing on her but.

  Sarah: -Ah shit, she thought, this really isn’t good-.

  The men began laughing and she shuffled backwards to put some distance between them, eventually she reached a wall and was prevented from shuffling further.

  “Should we have some fun with her” one of the goons asked, he was met with agreement from the others”

  Blonde Man: “Unfortunately, the deal was to bring her to our employer unharmed” the blonde man said “But accidents do happen” the man smiled sinisterly revealing his golden tooth “Maybe we break her nose in revenge for Tommy” The man was answered with various words of encouragement from his men.

  “Paulie! Bring me the crowbar! I'll strike her right across the face!” Fear began creeping up through her body.

  Sarah: -Shit! This is bad! Really bad!- She watched a thug holding a crowbar walk up to the blonde man… although weirdly the thug seemed to be a boy around her age.

  Sarah: -Guess he’s like an intern or something? Wait, do they do internships for generic goons?- These ridiculous thoughts crossed her mind, alleviating her fear slightly. Surprisingly she wasn’t the only one who was shocked by the boy's appearance.

  Blonde Man: “...Wh… who the hell are you!?” The blonde man asked as he reached for the crowbar reflexively.

  Boy: “uh, Well… I’m not Paulie” The boy answered before immediately striking the man across the face with the crowbar, dislodging his golden tooth and sending it flying. The remaining men stared at the newcomer in shock, as did Sarah, after a few moments the boy turned to face the men, and then Sarah, he observed her for a few seconds before returning his attention to the men.

  Boy: “So then… Should we begin?” The boy politely asked as he thew the crowbar behind him.