A/N:

To all of you who have been following this story despite my lack of consistent updates, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I'm still going to keep writing The Planeswalker Chronicles, so don't worry - I'm not going to abandon it, and if something bad ever does happen where I'm not going to be able to finish, then I will make sure to let you kind people know. I can't make concrete promises of when my updates will be from here on out, but I hope to make them much more frequent than the "once per year" that ended up just happening.

Though I won't deny that I've been a victim of writers' block, the main reason that I haven't been writing is that, well...I've been busy. I know that sounds callous, but it's true. I care about this story just as much as I always have, but with work - both my part-time job and my professional job - multiple moves in short time spans, and endeavors to spend time with my boyfriend and friends whom I'm not going to see for a long while after my next move, I haven't found time to myself to do much of anything.

I'm somewhat active on deviantART ( .com) and Tumblr ( .com), and I also post The Planeswalker Chronicles there. If you're ever wondering where my progress is at, then please feel free to send me a message on one of those sites. I check them much more often than I check my messages here.

Again, thank you all for bearing with me, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

-Ana

I wanted to yell out 'A friend of yours?' over the din of the spiraling flames that roared around this beast of a woman and somehow kept her aloft, but I thought better of it. She did not look like she was having a good day.

Join the club, lady.

Really, though, I had no room to talk, considering the fact that her version of a bad day seemed to involve a hell of a lot more rage and violence than mine.

She came slamming to the ground with a force that rattled my teeth then, leather armor and chainmail clanking together. I wondered for a split second whether her hair was covered in the ash of something burnt before I realized, no – That was just its color. Close-cropped to the side of her head, it made her look even angrier than she already did, if that was possible. I did everything I could not to recoil from her appearance. Somehow, I figured that that would be exactly what she wanted.

"Miss me, Jacey-boy?" Baltrice chuckled, taking a step forward to put a boot right in the gut of the prone woman at her feet. Though unconscious, her body twitched. I cringed inwardly. "I thought you'd be happy! After all this time, I finally found your zombie-sucking slutbag for ya!"

Jace blanched, and then glowered. For one second his eyes were wider than I had ever seen them, and then the next, they were glowing a brilliant blue as he gathered mana to him in a rush that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Whatever was going on, this was serious business.

And having at least the slightest amount of skill in putting two and two together based on social cues and past knowledge, I deduced that this serious business had to do with none other than Jace's mysterious ex. The naked brunette on the floor in front of me. Liliana Vess, wasn't it?

Things just got a lot more complicated.

"What do you want, Baltrice?" I could tell that he was doing all he could to stay composed. "The last time we parted ways, we were still allies. There's no reason for you to-"

"I PUT ON THE NECKLACE, YOU LYING SON OF A BITCH!" Jace and I both jerked back in alarm as she launched right up into the air again, borne by a pillar of fire. My ears rang. I hadn't thought it was physically possible for someone to yell that loud. Was she using magic?

It didn't matter. More importantly, what necklace?

Apparently, Jace understood better than I did. Obviously, he would. This was just something I had never heard him mention. And obviously, this was something bad – because he had gone white again, even whiter than before.

If I had ever seen an expression that so perfectly encompassed the emotion-thought combination of "Oh shit," it would be his right now.

Baltrice's voice was acid. "I originally came here at the request of a mutual friend of ours. Just wanted to pop by...deliver a message..." She knitted her fingers together and flexed them, cracking the joints in all her knuckles. "Maybe catch up a little...you know, just like old times." Any hint of sarcasm vanished in a single moment. "Back when you used to mind-control me like your little fucking slave."

Jace looked aghast. He stepped back, shaking his head vehemently. "No. No, Baltrice, I told you, I didn't...I never-"

"Shut the FUCK up!" He just barely managed to dodge a large fireball sent his way, which sizzled and hissed and left nasty scorch marks all over the carpet. What was left of it, anyway. "I did NOT come here to listen to your pathetic little excuses. I came here to make you watch me kick your pretty tramp's ass to every hell and back before I kick yours." Two more fireballs erupted into being, one clenched in each fist. "Maybe then I'll deliver that message. If you're still in one piece."

For once, I didn't have to get myself involved in the confrontation that was unfolding in front of me. It wasn't my business. I had no part in it. I could just walk away, right now, before this crazy woman even noticed me – since, for whatever reason, she hadn't thus far – and go back to my room to sleep off the leftover pain from my surgery. I could make the smart choice for once. Since I had agreed to help this godsdamned Consortium of let's-find-creative-new-ways-to-try-and-get-Rana-k illed, I'd barely had a day where I wasn't running into some sort of trouble or another. This was starting to become an issue. The last time I'd found said trouble, I'd nearly died...or, more so than usual. I wasn't sure how much more of that I could reasonably take.

And yet...despite everything...

It was Jace. And no matter how mixed my feelings were about him at the moment, there was no way I could sit there and let this woman start beating him to a pulp. Or trying to.

Besides, honestly? She was pissing me off. And I was already in a terrible mood.

Striding right in between the two combatants, I spread my arms to either side of my body. Too late, I realized that the motion yanked my still-healing abdominal muscles in a way that they clearly weren't ready for. I winced. Even so, I kept my face stern. "Alright." To my surprise, though, my voice ended up sounding rather authoritative, and pride swelled in my chest at that. "I don't know what the hells is going on here, but this is not something Jace has the time for-"

Rana. Rana. NO. What are you doing?

"-so if you could kindlyleave the lady alone and get out of here before anyone has to take any more hostile action-"

SHIT. Rana, no, STOP, this is a really bad idea-

"-then maybe we could all end the day on a good note?"

The pause that followed once I had finished lasted maybe a good two seconds before an expression of blatant disgust crossed over Baltrice's face. Narrowed eyes finally landing on mine, she threw her hand up as if dismissing me, though the gesture was more derisive than anything else.

"And who's this little bark-cunt bitch?"

My jaw dropped open. I could feel my face heating up, and the primal anger born of insult rose up in my throat in a sudden onrush of bile. "Excuse me?"

"You heard what I said, elf. Who the fuck are you?"

I vaguely realized that I was starting to channel black mana – Winds whipped at my hair from multiple directions, and my feet were now hovering off the ground. Beside me, Jace backed up a step. I could sense him trying to speak with me telepathically again, but his words were like buzzing in my head. I didn't hear them, and I didn't care. "Not telling you." I gritted my teeth, and pulled in that swirling miasma of power tighter, like a coiling spring. It filled me up to the brim, closing all the gaps left behind to heal and drowning even the slightest sense of discomfort. Gods, it felt good. "You're not worth anything but a well-aimed blast of my magic to your face."

Baltrice's lips curled in an ugly smile, which had barely lingered before it widened itself into a full-on toothy grin. Oh, I'd definitely provoked her. "Pffft. That's the best comeback you've got? Seriously?" She barked out a laugh, rising higher and higher on her pillar now. "Ah, well...I guess I could use an appetizer before the main course, so...sure, fine, you'll do." Those fireballs in her hands suddenly tripled in size.

"Rana!" I heard Jace's voice calling out loud this time instead of inside my head, but it still didn't matter. This fight had very quickly gotten very personal. He was groaning, sounding way beyond exasperated. "Oh, come on, why did you have to-"

Just get your girlfriend out of here! The words were out of my mental mouth before I could bite them back, and I was surprised to find out that they left behind less of a guilty aftertaste than I thought they would. Was I already starting to accept the inevitable? Had I been? Either way, the awkward tension in the silence that followed was palpable.

...I'll get her to a different room, and then I'm coming back. You're still supposed to be recovering. You shouldn't be fighting. Especially not against her.

Fortunately, each of these little exchanges was near-instantaneous in my head. Baltrice was still sizing me up, much like a hungry predator might examine its next catch before devouring it whole. On my part, I noticed that she seemed to have a one-track mind – She hadn't even noticed Jace set up an illusion of Liliana's body still lying on the floor and of his own form still standing beside me, both of them distractions as he set to work picking up the battered body and hauling her away. Granted, I did know what I was looking for, but still. I can handle myself, Jace.

There was no reply. I could sense the distress emanating from his general direction and pushing its way into my thoughts through our telepathic bond as he departed in haste, but I had suddenly decided that, really, I still didn't care.

I was injured. I was exhausted. I felt jilted and relieved at the same time for gods know what reason – I'd think about the implications of that later – and, moreover, tired of the veritable whirlwind of chaos that had become my life. It's true that I had brought myself into it by accepting the Consortium's offer, but how would it have made any rational sense to turn them down? I had had no idea what I would be getting myself into back then, and I sure as hells hadn't signed on for the slew of figuratively and literally explosive personal drama that seemed to tag along wherever this damn group of people went.

But…oh, hells.

Like it or not, this damn group of people was all I had now – even the overly-broody ones whose real feelings I had always been too naïve to see…or chosento ignore.

It was about time that I started repaying all those favors I owed them.

Without sparing my own musings so much as another second, I flew at Baltrice with palms outstretched then, and I caught her right in the unyielding chestplate before she could even process that I had just charged her.

I could feel flame licking at my hair, at my neck, at my ears, as she grabbed at me barehanded with her fireballs still very much intact, but I pushed the pain away and brought back nothing but the cold tide of black mana. She shrieked with rage as I shoved that tide right back outward, into her chest with an almost audible thwump. There was a breath of stillness before the spell that I had just cast imploded, and a sea of night-black and violet tendrils wrapped themselves around her and twisted, turning her shrieks into ones of pain instead. As the wind that had buffeted me up cushioned the spell's recoil and my fall, she writhed in midair for a moment before tumbling ungracefully to the ground. By the time she was standing again, I was already on my feet. My lovely and oh-so-convenient anger storm hadn't abated one bit, not even after my expenditure of power, and my body was practically pulsing with uncontained mana.

"Considered revising your previous statement yet?" I smirked. The words came out of my mouth without their normal detour to my brain.

She snarled, wiping a trickle of blood from her split lower lip. She seemed to realize that there was blood in her mouth, too, and summarily spat that out. She looked livid. Good. "Seriously, bitch, fuck you."

"I'll take that as a n-"

My vision blossomed with colors as, quite suddenly, a gauntleted fist slammed itself right into my gut – my healing gut – and upward, shoving me hard against the wall behind me and keeping me there. For an instant, that lifeblood of mana vanished, and all I could seem to grasp was an awful pain. Her hard-cut face was impossibly right in front of mine. I could smell her breath: alcohol, copper, rot. I wheezed as I tried to suck in air, and that only make her chuckle.

"Only the veterans get to shit-talk in battle, big girl."

"Who are you to…" There. There, white mana, and I grabbed onto it and reeled it in. Healing magic slowed the bruising, numbed the pain, and for a blessed moment I could breathe again. "…judge my rank?" Another wave of black mana shoved her backward and off of me, catching her by surprise. My eyes narrowed as I staggered away and forced all of my focus onto the statue of some merchant lord beside her that nobody would miss, and a rift in space tore itself open. She screamed as it pulled her in too fast to counter, slamming her head against the base of the statue before that was sucked away. The tear sealed closed again, dropping her to the ground like a sack of potatoes. She groaned. She tried to drag herself to her feet, one hand clutching at a new lump on her ashen head, but she wasn't about to just roll right over for me even so.

"O…Okay…that's it." Her voice was a rasp, and I could almost feel the effort it took her to draw forth red mana for another fireball spell. "I was just going to kick you around…f-for fun for a bit, but now I'm really…" Her breath came out in a hiss. "I'm really gonna kill you."

"I'm afraid I'm not going to allow you to do that, Baltrice."

I jumped then – both of us did – upon hearing the irritable voice echo beyond the giant hole out onto the Rubblefield where a window had once been, and both of our respective spells abated nearly as one. I felt my feet touch solid ground again.

At first I saw nothing, but then a small circular shadow began to descend upon the ground just outside that hole, growing as it came. There was no noise, not even a whoosh of air, from the craft as it came to a hovering halt – a disc of metal, etherium, that was perfectly round and perhaps two feet in width. It pilot stepped off neatly and onto the gravel. At first I saw that Baltrice, who had turned fully to face him, was blocking my view, but then-

"You are Ranewen, correct? The Consortium's new recruit?"

The man had walked right past Baltrice as if she meant nothing, and her gaze, slightly open-mouthed, followed him unblinkingly. Now he came to a halt a few yards away on the crisped carpet, his arms held loose at his sides.

When I saw the mass of jagged, twisted etherium that shaped one of them all the way down to his empty gut, I felt like I had just gotten punched in my own all over again.

Thin lips pulled upward into a smile, and the man with the white braids and the weathered face and the faint glow to his eyes – red to match whatever kind of demon magic lit his metal parts from beneath – stepped forward and extended a hand. His flesh one, thank the gods.

At least, I hoped it was.

"I apologize for my subordinate's behavior." He glanced back at Baltrice, and I swore that for the barest instant I saw her wither, shrinking back against the clutter beneath her. "She was instructed to simply deliver a message, but clearly her personal business got in the way of her ability to carry out orders." His smile widened, tight and dangerous, and for a moment it seemed as if he were looking to the side of my face at something behind me rather than meeting my eyes. I didn't dare look away, though, and by that time the moment had passed. His gaze was locked to mine again. "But no matter. I decided to come here myself, so all is well.

I came here today to speak to you of matters that concern a, ah…" There was a pause wherein his smile tightened even further, and he cleared his throat lightly – little good it did him, considering that his voice was already a rasp. "…mutual friend of ours. You'll recall him. I've come to understand that he is the only dragon you know."

Oh gods no. I felt suddenly sick. What would happen if I just threw up on the floor now? No, no no no. Not this.

"I believe you'll find it to be in your best interest if you come with me."