His back pressed against the wall, Kim Aglecard stared at the young man in front of him. Though, most of his view was blocked by what appeared to be a baseball bat made of ice. Where the hell did that come from?

  Mark had mentioned Ryan before, though just briefly after all that stuff at the Robotics club went down, and it sounded he was just some kind of summoner. But he was able to use magic like this as well? And from all those wounds scattered around his body, it was clear that Ryan wouldn't hesitate to actually use this bat either.

  "Make sure where we all stand?" Kim asked, laughing nervously, "What's that supposed to mean?"

  But Ryan just kept squatting on the table, holding forward the bat. He really, really wasn't playing around, and if the little combat training Kim got told him anything, it was that this was a dangerous situation for him to be in. Though his 'intuition' stat wasn't tuned for combat whatsoever, he really didn't even need it to be for him to realize that.

  As Kim looked at Ryan, in the background right behind him, Macy was walking around the table. She was trying to find a good position. From the corner of the room, she quietly grabbed one of the glass bottles from one of the crates of beer. There wasn't much else to make use of here. Kim glanced to the side for just a moment as Macy pulled back her arm. Ryan noticed, and let out a slight sigh as Macy tried to throw the bottle at the back of his head.

  He didn't even move, and it wasn't like he had to. To the others in the room, this might seem like a five-versus-one, but of course... this was a five-versus-five. For just a brief moment, Kim could see Ryan's eyes spark up with five different, intermingling colours of mana. Maximus jumped out of the back of Ryan's head, catching the glass bottle. Before even landing on the ground, he threw the bottle across the room, where Jester was already vaulting toward. He caught the bottle, quickly returning it to its original position in the crate.

  Gaia formed her body on the table, jumping down while Ryan undid her seal so that she could block the door and stop everyone from getting out. And, though Ryan thought it was maybe a little extreme, Gregor pulled out one of his machines from Ryan's backpack. Just in case, he always carried at least one with him, for emergencies.

  Gregor lifted it up onto the table and set it up properly. Mark was the first to realize what was going on and froze up, staring at the miniature cannon that could flip around and shoot at literally a moment's notice.

  "... You've... got a few more spirits than before," Mark laughed awkwardly, staring at Gregor, "And this one's a technology spirits, huh?"

  "Artillerist."

  "Huh?"

  "Gregor is an Artillerist Spirit. Maximus is a Knight, Jester is a Harlequin, and Gaia is a Garden Golem," Ryan explained, pulling the bat away from Kim. He stopped squatting on the table and sat down on its edge instead, still making sure to stare at the man in front of him, "What do you guys know about the Spirit Keeper?"

  "Spirit Keeper?" Macy asked, "What's that supposed to be?"

  The others seemed similarly confused. Mark seemed to recognize it a little, but only from hearing it be mentioned at the robotics club. But Kim... he heard about it before. He glanced at the Spirits around the room.

  "... You don't have a unique class at all."

  Ryan smiled, "You heard about it, huh?"

  He was glad. That would mean that Ryan wouldn't need to explain things too much.

  "What's that supposed to mean? What's a 'Spirit Keeper'?" Mark asked, only slightly glancing away from Gregor.

  And Kim crossed his arms, "It's... I don't know a ton about it, because people just kind of stopped talking about it at some point. But after I awakened and got my basic training, I read something about it. It's the class that the family's founder had. There's one at a time, and we usually tried to bring the Spirit Keeper back into our family, so that we can protect spirits, or something like that."

  Ryan quickly nodded his head, "Mhm, basically. But it's not all spirits; specifically, it's spirits without the ability to form bodies or use their abilities on their own. So, instead, the Spirit Keeper acts as a go-between. We build their bodies, and they use their abilities with our bodies as their conduit," he explained, "There's a bit more to it, but I won't get into it."

  Turning around to Mark, Ryan continued, "Some time ago... the spirits' cores were scattered and fragmented. They lost most their memories, and were basically deeply injured, and sometimes crippled. Gaia's core was one that was fragmented. Basically, cut into three pieces. I had found one, and then when Maximus and I wanted to do some training at the robotics club, another one just walked into the room."

  Mark widened his eyes, "Wait, what? Did that spirit's core have something to do with the rampage?"

  "Yup. The white shadow society infected a fragment with corruption, and gave it to Vanda so she could use it in her robot. She didn't know, of course, she just thought it was a magic stone with tons of mana inside of it. Like a super-powered battery. It was supposed to go on its rampage the day after, during-"

  "During the showcase. But because you were there, the corruption took hold earlier and... well, all that shit happened," Mark sighed, looking over at Gaia, "And that fragment belonged to this thing?"

  "... Her name is Gaia. If you call her 'this thing' again, I'm actually going to use this," Ryan held up the ice-bat, "But... yes. We destroyed the rampaging robot and retrieved the core fragment."

  Mark finally filled in some gaps about something that he had been wondering about for a while, but Kim was the one that asked the next question, "Why are you telling us all this?"

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  As if it were obvious, Ryan looked at the hybrid with a raised brow, "As I said, I'm making sure we all know where we stand. I was going to just beat you up first, but... you're pretty useful in other ways. So, I'm going to make sure we're on the same page about some things."

  Though Kim seemed even more confused, Ryan continued, "Throughout the past twenty years since the cores were scattered and fragmented, the Aglecard family has been able to find two whole cores, one of which was unresponsive, and two cores of which they have less than half of each. Even before I learned of all this, I gathered one whole core, Maximus, and two thirds of Gaia. And after that, I awakened and repaired Gaia, woke up the unresponsive core, got the help of an uncooperative spirit, found a cure for corruption, and was invited to meet Goria face to face. Which is where I got this thing," once again, Ryan held up the ice-bat.

  The others were trying to follow what he was saying. Kim was clearly more than just puzzled by everything he was just told, or rather by why Ryan was saying all this, but Macy once again came in hot.

  "We get it, you're so awesome, and so much better than us. We get it. You're a true Aglecard prince, is that what you wanted us to know?" Macy asked, and Ryan quickly turned toward her, shaking his head.

  "Nah, fuck that. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that despite being the son to someone that did something so abhorrent he was stripped of his position as future head and was blacklisted, after everything I've done, I'm valuable enough that even those shitty elders can't touch me anymore," Ryan pointed out, a slight grin forming on his face. And that confused everyone here even more, "You five are angry, I get it. You hate the way things are going in the family. How things work here. But don't take it out on people that have no say in all this, people that are just victims in this whole situation. Victims of the world and the fucked-up politics and decisions of our family."

  He could tell. Ryan was winning them over. So now, he just needed the last push, "Instead, let's fuck over the family and change how we do all this. And I think I could use your help with that."

  Ryan walked out of the study room ahead of everyone else. They were still thinking about the offer that he had made after explaining it more, but he was pretty sure they would actually consider it. With how angry they seemed to be at the family, they had to want to mess things up and change things.

  Hearing some footsteps behind him, Ryan turned around. Kim had run after him, "Are you serious about this?"

  "Of course I am. Why would I joke about something like that?" he replied, and Kim frowned deeply.

  "I just... don't know why you would want to do all that. You're in an amazing position, and you can do basically whatever the hell you want. You're not like us... you actually have a future in the family," the hybrid pointed out. Ryan sighed.

  "Listen, dude. I'll be fine, either way. With, or without the family. Even if I were to get blacklisted again, I could live somehow. Maybe I wouldn't be able to swim in gild, but I could be happy as long as I can be around my friends and do the things that I think are right. But the way things are in the family... well, I may be able to have all the money I want, but none of this is right. Things aren't going like they should be," he pointed out, "And all the money in the world isn't enough for me to sell my fucking soul."

  "You... you want to rebel against the family just because you don't think the way some vampires are being treated is right?"

  "Come on, man, you have to hear how fucked up what you're saying is, right? 'Some vampires'? They're people, man. Like..."

  "No, I-I get it, sorry," Kim rubbed the bridge of his nose, "Just so you know, but we wouldn't have really messed with the hidden students. We just wanted to feel like we're actually... worth something. We probably went a bit too far, but that makes this even more confusing. Why do you want us to join you?"

  Ryan smiled lightly, "... After class today, come to Café Runic. Make sure to bring the others, I'll explain the rest then if you want. And we can take the opportunity to just clear the air between us a bit."

  Pulling onto the sidewalk next to the café, Ryan quickly saw the five visitors already there, sitting on the bench in front of the store. He parked the bike and pulled off his helmet, "Sorry, have you guys been waiting long?"

  "Not too long," Kim sighed, "More importantly, what did you call us here for?"

  "No... more importantly," James stepped up to Ryan, staring down at the bike, "Isn't this a 1323 GTY Magika?"

  Ryan looked down at the bike, "Uh... I think so, yeah."

  "Man, I haven't seen one of these outside of pictures! She's a real beauty, isn't she?" James squatted down and took a closer look, "In prime condition, even! Actually, I think someone swapped out the- Hold on, does this have a mana injector? Dude, that's sick!"

  Not sure what to say, Ryan just looked down at the spot that James was ogling, "If you say so, I have no idea, really."

  "You have no idea? Dude, come on, this is your bike, right?"

  "Since literally a day ago. It belonged to Yamada until then. She probably took real good care of it," he pointed out, though Ryan was quickly taken aback by the stares of the others, "... Did I say something weird?"

  Kim cleared his throat, "Uhm... you just said Yamada, right? As in, Yamada Hiero? The gunslinger?"

  Though Ryan was a bit surprised, he really shouldn't have been. After all, if people in the family would know about anyone, they would know about Runar. And then, knowing about his aides wasn't all too far-fetched either. Especially since Yamada and Anders were both pretty strong.

  "That's her, yeah. She's a... 'great' driver. She's really into cars and stuff," Ryan explained as he walked up to the café's front door. Of course, the store was closed right now, but Ryan had a key.

  "What's she like otherwise? Is she funny? I'm sure she's funny," Macy said with a curious grin on her face, and Ryan shrugged as he let everyone in.

  "She's 'fun', but I don't know about 'funny'. Though, we usually only text, I don't know sign-language well enough to understand the nuances of her humour yet," Ryan pointed out, and Macy looked at him confused.

  "Sign language? What do you mean?"

  With a frown, Ryan replied, "Because she's... deaf?"

  "She's deaf?!" Macy let out, shocked, and Ryan immediately looked around with a panicked expression.

  "Wait, is that not public knowledge?"

  Kim slightly slapped Macy's shoulder, "It is, she's just fucking with you. Anyway, why are we here? I mean, I guess if this place is closed we can talk all we want, but we could have just done that in our study room."

  With a relieved sigh, happy that he didn't accidentally reveal some kind of personal secret, Ryan locked the door behind everyone again to make sure nobody could accidentally come inside, "We're not here to talk, we're heading downstairs to the haven."

  Confused, the five looked at Ryan, "Haven? There's a haven nearby?"

  Ryan nodded, "Yeah, like literally downstairs. The entrance is in the basement."

  "Why would there be an entrance to a haven in a random café?" Kim asked, and Ryan stopped walking.

  "Oh. Okay. So... I guess I did just reveal a secret. Uh, whatever, not that it matters, the elders already know anyway as far as I'm aware," Ryan sighed, "This place is Runar's café. It's like a hobby project or front or whatever, I don't know. But Runar makes good coffee, so whatever. We live right above here."

  "Wait... what? You live above this place? You live above a haven?"

  "Well, yeah. Runar manages the haven personally. His main office is downstairs as well," Ryan opened up the door to the back and led everyone into the basement. It was clear that they were curious about what was going on, but they didn't quite know what to say or ask about, "He's out right now, though, so we've got some time to talk after I introduce you guys to everyone."

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