Another word on Marie’s paper sword simmered away. The edge shimmered with a blue light, crystal clear water flowing as an intense stream towards the tip. Once there, it vanished into nothingness. Whatever arcane machinations summoned the liquid, they didn’t give it a long-term existence.

With three quick slashes, the French noble carved the lock out of the door in front of her. Jack, who stood next to her, grabbed that sliced up obstacle and pulled it out of the wood. The door swung open afterwards. They had realized that it was safer for whoever was inside if she cut out the locks, rather than punching the door in. Nobody had gotten hurt, but it had been close once and that had been enough of a warning.

The two of them stepped inside and towards the man cowering on the bed. He looked rather frail, feminine and beautiful. ‘I guess the proper term is ladyboy,’ John thought, somewhat surprised to find someone like this here. Slaves were generally divided into three categories: pleasure, labour and resources. First were the generally fetishized sex slaves, whose fantasy John very much was into but whose reality he found appalling. Second were people that had muscle strength to take over all the menial tasks. Third were pretty much Abyss exclusive, people that were either harvested for mana or knew some sort of magic that people found useful.

This guild had specialized in the first and third category. Unsurprisingly, this meant that the majority of people locked away were women. When it came to sex slaves, males were the less requested gender by quite the margin, and when it came to the abilities and mana harvesting, gender mattered fairly little. For every five women kept inside the building, there was one guy, just about. In total, thirty-one people had been inside the barrier. Eight guild members, three customers and twenty ‘pieces of merchandise’.

Going by Abyssal standards and population numbers, this had been a sizable operation. That it had slipped through the cracks for this long was terrible. ‘I’ll put together a task force that searches all of NYC. If there are other stragglers out there, I need to snuff them all out,’ John thought. He hated the fact that his own reputation entered his mind during that.

If he had been a good person, he would have only thought about how terrible this was for the victims. Instead the upcoming articles about this and the general feeling of administrative failure were a chink in his patience and pride that was purely selfish in nature. With a sigh, he stopped fighting against that side of his personality and let it into his thoughts. If nothing else, it was extra motivation to get things fixed. He just needed to be vigilant, as always when it came to his pride, that he didn’t let it take the steering wheel. That would be one quick and self-destructive trip into narcissism.

The ladyboy was too scared to ask a lot of questions. His level was so low that he was little above a mundane person. No wonder they had felt comfortable leaving him in a largely unsecured room. Through careful but firm handling, Jack managed to get the guy moving. It was the last corner of the building they had needed to search.

Sitting in the entrance hall, waiting for Marie and his double’s return, John glared at the slavers and customers. He had separated them from the slaves by having one party gather at one wall and the other at, well, the other. Sitting in the middle, he acted as the necessary border. Among the former slaves, some had been here short enough or where of generally strong enough character to lash out. Something that John had nothing but sympathy for but couldn’t allow.

He felt his control over the barrier slip as a more capable Fateweaver entered. Without any hesitation he let go of it. If he had struggled, he could have put up a little bit of a fight, but he had every reason to believe this were his allies coming in. Just as Marie and Jack came into the room, the latter morphing back into the Mandala Sphere, a number of police men entered.

They wore dark blue, greyish uniforms, the usual colour for Fusion’s officials. The cut was slightly different from the military, looking more elegant and less mass-produced. Displayed on the chest was the proper version of Fusion’s emblem, six comets in the colour of John’s elementals clashing at the central point and fusing into a vortex. The rough form was the same as the flower-like simplified model, but the grade of detail was much, much higher.

There were four of them, coming and scanning the situation. Tagging along with them was a Fateweaver, who wore a regular looking suit, and Metra. “Yo,” the blonde berserker babe greeted as she walked over. “You could have told me you would have a date this fun, I would have tagged along.”

“Would have somewhat defeated the purpose of the date,” John answered as he got up. “If I may, Marie, Metra, Metra, Marie,” he gestured between the two of them.

“Oh, you’re the brat that insulted Lydia like an absolute fucking moron,” Metra noted and offered her hand to shake.

“You seem to have no issue insulting me yourself,” Marie stated, ignoring the hand in favour of giving the ancient weapon a long glare. “With far less reason. Zhat I am more beautiful and more powerful than the ‘empress’ of Germany is an easily observable fact. Your manners and choice of words is even more beneath me.”

“…Yeah, she is going to be difficult,” Metra remarked in John’s direction, lowering her arm. “You sure she will be worth the trouble?”

“Let’s keep the answer to yes,” John stated in a tone that he hoped shut both of them up with its severity. “I’m not in the mood for this.”

“She started it,” Marie declared, mistaking his tone for judgement.

“I’ll end it as well,” Metra grinned and cracked her knuckles.

“You both shut up,” the Gamer growled, and this time the girls noticed that he wasn’t kidding. “I have no patience for arrogance or strife, not here, not now, is that understood?” They both nodded silently, although that initial attempt at a handshake wasn’t repeated. Smoothing things over wasn’t his current priority. Instead, he waved towards the captain of the present police force.

“Mister President,” he was greeted with a salute, “as per your request, we have brought the detainment vehicle.”

“Good,” John simply answered and looked out the door. It was a rather standard looking car of the transporter variety. Lots of room in the back allowed for a lot of cargo to be loaded in. The cargo, in this case, being prisoners.

Getting detained Abyssals from one place to another was a bit of a hassle. Usually, they had to be transported through real space. That was somewhat feasible for individuals, but moving groups through the inner city of the big apple was a real bother, especially since the people in question could enter Illusion Barriers whenever they wanted. With that limitation, it was no wonder that people usually murdered their opposition when they got the chance. Moving and detaining was a giant pain.

The workaround John had for this problem was that car. It had a mobile barrier generator built in, only a small one, but it was enough. Having a Fateweaver around to maintain it combined into the ability to move at least weak Abyssals relatively easily. For the case that somebody tried something anyway, Metra was around.

As they had only one of those cars at the moment, they would need to drive them over in two trips. Another layer of annoyance, but just how it was when resources were in the process of being built up. ‘This internal focus period is really necessary,’ John thought. All the funds that had previously gone into warfare and expansion could now be redirected into infrastructure problems.

“Start loading them in. Metra, keep an eye on things,” John commanded the people and things got moving. Taking the captain aside for a second, the Gamer lowered his voice, “I’ll be keeping a personal watch on this affair. Nobody who doesn’t have my express permission talks to these people, no matter what rank they have, understood?”

John had already found out who the corruption ended at, thanks to extensive questioning of everyone. Those people would still be running around for a few hours to a few days though, before all the mechanisms to catch them could spring into action. Until then, the Gamer wanted to keep this on the low and efficient.

Somewhat intimidated, the captain nodded and then went to help his men with the task at hand.

_____________________________________________________________________________

“…I…” Marie started, very hesitatingly, about an hour later. The situation had been resolved, for the moment. Official questions were made and John had decided to continue their date. To get his head clear, if nothing else. “…I apologize.”

“For how you talked to Metra?” John asked, having waited for exactly this topic.

“For speaking in the way I did, despite promising otherwise,” the French noble confirmed. “It was unbecoming of me.”

“Little steps,” John encouraged her and offered her a spoonful of the ice cream he was eating. She took it with little hesitation. “To be fair, Metra is a very direct person,” he continued. “Same as Eliza. We all get along by teasing one another and poking at our weaknesses while also supporting each other when it actually comes down to it.”

“That does sound rather pleasant,” Marie admitted.

“Problem is you can’t have that without taking a hit to your ego sometimes,” John continued. “If your response to having your imperfections attacked is to become rigid and assault theirs instead, while also elevating your own good traits, you don’t come across as a good person. Basically, it feels like you refuse to play ball.”

“How do you mean that?” Marie asked, confused by that metaphor.

“Alright,” John put down the spoon to have more room to gesture, “look, I’m a pervert.”

“I fail to see how zhat is related to this.” She looked rather confused.

John took the napkin from underneath his glass of ice cream and slid it over the table towards her. “Is it true or not?” he asked, taking his hand off the paper.

“Your sexual exploits are rather renown, yes,” the black-haired aristocrat said. “One could even say your debauchery is a comedically overblown reality, an epic of erotic proportions.”

“Alright, so, the ball,” he took the napkin back, “is now in my court again.” The second he had it at the edge of his table, his demeanour suddenly changed. “Wow, I’m incredibly sorry that I get to live out my desires. As it so happens, I’m more attractive and interesting than all the other men you have ever met.” He flicked the napkin off the table. “And just like that,” he continued in a normal tone, “the ball is off the court. That’s what you do.”

“…Zhat is an exaggeration,” Marie hesitatingly declared.

“Sorry to break it to you, but it really isn’t,” John told her. “This is the third time I had to cut into this topic with you today and the very first time we spoke it was an issue. When you can compare yourself to someone to establish your superiority, you do. When you are assaulted in the slightest of ways, you immediately highlight what you are good at, while addressing that the other is worse.”

“Your own pride issues are rather…” Marie started but stopped when John leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and making a smug expression. A frustrated sigh escaped her beautiful lips.

“You didn’t get a lot of pushback growing up, did you?” John dared to suggest.

“Are you calling me spoiled, John Newman?” Her tone was rather sharp. What had started as an apology from her had turned into an analysis of her behaviour. John wasn’t surprised that she took that badly. Confronted with their flaws in such blunt a manner, most people’s mood soured. He just needed to finally hammer this point into her skull.

“Look, I would love it if you were rotten to the core, at least when it comes to the bedroom,” he joked. “That plays right into my own depravity. To answer your actual question, before your beautiful eyes sear holes into my forehead,” he said and took a more open posture in the chair. “I’m calling you arrogant on a pretty deep-seated, subconscious level. Just like I said earlier, if you’re working on that, we can get along.” He shrugged. “If you don’t, then I might be able to stomach it thanks to your other qualities, but I can guarantee you that my harem won’t have it.”

“Let us assume it is as bad as you say,” Marie stabbed her own ice cream, reducing the artful display into a multi-coloured mush, “how would one go about fixing it?”

“Well,” John bowed down and snatched the napkin of the floor. “Let’s play ball.” He thought about a topic for a moment, then started, “You know what the greatest thing about Jack is? My double?” He slid the napkin over to her.

She took it and asked, “Is it that you can marvel at yourself without a mirror?” John couldn’t help but giggle, while he received the napkin back. On the attacking front of bantering, she definitely didn’t need help.

“No, it’s that I can play two videogames at the same time,” he clarified and then said, “but nice to know what you would do first when getting such an ability.” The tiny paper towel wandered over to her.

“Like I would waste my time with such frivolity,” Marie stated and started to slide the napkin back. When she noticed that John wasn’t moving to receive it, instead eating his ice cream and staring at her expectantly, she stopped in the motion. “Alzhough… it would not be… an action without cause…?” she slowly added, her tone making it sound like a question.

“Still self-aggrandizing, but I will bite.” John took the paper. “There certainly is a lot to look at. Too bad that you’re Christian.”

“What could my faith possibly have to do with my attractiveness?” Marie asked.

Taking a dramatic pause, he then asked, “What, you aren’t going to wait with the whole sex thing until you’re married?”

“Obviously not,” Marie retorted.

“So, you’re a dirty sinner?”

“I fail to observe all tenants of the faith, but I told you earlier that I am no true follower of the church. My values are my own, to have me branded as…” She realized that he was pushing her mid-sentence and sighed. “I apologize.”

“Don’t apologize,” John reached over and took her hand, resting on the napkin, “keep playing. Let’s tug at each other, tease and prod at our little insecurities, show them, discuss them, solve and confront them and build the trust needed to confess the bigger ones. That is what being in a relationship with me means, Marie.”

“I think I am starting to understand…” She moved her hand a little bit, so their fingers intertwined. “And zhis is harder than I thought when I made my promise earlier. Court always praised me as good at socializing…”

“You are, without a doubt, charismatic, Lady Marie,” John assured her. “I just don’t think you’re good at keeping friends, and I don’t know if we can be more than that until that is fixed.” He realized he had pushed her a bit into sensible territory, when the folding of their hands became almost a grip of hers on his. “You okay?”

“I’ll need time to think,” she said with a sad, almost teary, look in her eyes. As much as John disliked being the cause for such an expression, at least this meant that he had gotten through to her. “Would you accompany me home, John?”