"Okay, I know you said we're not shaking him down."

  "Right, Shilloh said, "You left the brass knuckles, right?"

  Birch didn't answer in a very, very troubling way. "And we're not offering to make out with him."

  "Correct."

  "And we're also not going to make out with each other in front of him."

  The dryad shrugged, thinking of her drunk alter ego Bi-lo, "Hard to say. He's at a bar, and tequila does strange things to me."

  "As is right and proper," Birch nodded. "But the question is, how else is having two extremely attractive women meet him at a bar going to bribe him?"

  Shilloh smiled, "Apparently, he's a huge nerd. Wade thinks we can lean into that, so he'll train me."

  "And by training you…"

  "I have my real interview with the banes on arrival. I'll get a job, that is guaranteed, but some extra prep will help me get a big job. Then I can be rich enough to get a pool with an underground tunnel that leads to my indoor sauna."

  "Yes, rich is nice. But fun is better. Will you get a job where you can have and or be fun?"

  "I dunno. Probably."

  Birch scowled. They stopped at a crosswalk, and the shorter woman crossed her arms and scowled, tapping her foot impatiently.

  They had not been traveling more than a few days and were in a nearby town. When Birch realized that Shilloh wasn't being stubborn for the sake of stubbornness, things had changed. Especially when Shilloh said she had made a promise about keeping details private that exceeded the NDA and would not break her word.

  Agnes, Birch, and Shilloh had a proper talk. Birch explained some concerning omissions she had attributed to a malicious and illegal NDA, which may have actually been Shilloh just keeping her word.

  They had compromised because, for all her love of chaos, she had solid points and was coming from a place of love. By the end of the night, Shilloh had a list of things to look for to make sure she wasn't being taken advantage of by a phony NDA. She promised to very seriously look out for all of them. In return, Birch would not push Shilloh for details. Though she did need to participate in the 'Women of Culture' book club.

  They had spent every day since in the same vehicle, which had been really fun even if Birch was a bit too fond of practical jokes. Given enough time, she was able to spend long stretches with calmer, less jarring parts of the woman's personality. They had also caught her more mischievous or risqué moments, much to their delight.

  "You don't seem happy," Shilloh said, taking in her friend's closed-off body language. "You know you don't have to help if you don't want to."

  "Oh fuck right off. I made a deal. I don't break deals."

  Shilloh nodded and let it pass. Their deal had been pretty simple. Shilloh would get help bribing the new bane, in exchange, she had to go on a few 'adventures' with Birch and Agnes. But, more importantly, she had to use whatever clout she could gain to try to avoid moving away from Birch.

  If the request hadn't been as cute as it was selfish, she might have made a bigger fuss about it. As it was, there were worse things than knowing you're going to be missed.

  Before too long, they had found the bar where Wade said Scotty would be. He had been cagey about exactly how and why he knew Scotty would be here, but the information seemed accurate.

  Birch strode through the door with the aura of someone who knew they were making an entrance that others were noticing.

  She was right.

  Shilloh was wearing a jean jacket with a nice lining and a few fun patches on it. Patches like a rhino and a unicorn in a rainbow heart, a stained-glass style image of a skeletal hand holding a rose, and other such things. Her hair was down, since it was cold, and she wore a beanie because Birch had almost stomped on the old ball cap she originally wanted to wear. It all came together with a thermal shirt, black jeans, and some tall black boots that were mostly fashionable but could quickly become practical once she was done breaking them in.

  Birch had not been constrained by the need to travel light and practical. She had on a very nice, subtle outfit, gorgeous makeup, and hair that was nice enough that it made Shilloh suspicious of magic. However, all of it was completely hidden underneath a unicorn onesie.

  None of this helped Shilloh's concerns about drug use. Though it did make her hope it was psychedelics rather than the real hard stuff. Either way, she'd keep an eye on Birch to see if she saw any hints that would tell her what was going on.

  They walked into a sports bar that was bordering on a dive bar. The floor was sticky, but there was food. Multiple TVs had multiple games on, but the TVs were old, and she suspected that some of what they showed were old VHS tapes of famous games.

  Birch stood out. Still, she strode up to the bar, welcoming the attention, and even got a high five from another woman who was deeply ensconced in a puffer coat.

  Shilloh drifted more to the side and scanned for the person they were looking for.

  It didn't take long to find him. He looked exactly like he had been described. Medium height, thin frame, a pair of glasses on his face, sports glasses hanging around his neck, keys to a moped on his belt, loose tee shirt with an unbuttoned long sleeve shirt, very short hair, and a sort of fussiness to the way he talked and moved.

  Scotty was standing by a bank of pinball machines and antique arcade games that, to her shock, were actually operating.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The bane was talking to a very attractive woman. Like, a proper jaw dropper who had to have impossible genetics and a serious workout routine. But Scotty was not flirting. Instead, he was gesticulating angrily at the machine. The woman was smiling as she played, occasionally shooting back a witty response, but Scotty actually seemed fed up.

  Even as Shilloh made her way over, she saw a massively muscular man—who looked like he made charcuterie boards with his morning swath of performance-enhancing drugs—leave his table and stalk towards the woman.

  Shilloh hustled over just in time to hear the meathead slur, "Who the fuck do you think you are yelling at my sister?"

  "Chill out, Hulk Bro-gan, your sister is about to beat my recording by tilting like a right little bitch. This isn't yelling, it's debating ethics."

  The sister muttered, "The ethics of you sucking my dick as hard as you suck at this game."

  It was hard to hear her because, at the same time, her brother yelled. The muscles of his chest flexed under a far too tight tank top. "No one calls her a bitch!"

  Shilloh put a hand on the huge man's wrist. "Whoa there, buddy. No need for this to escalate."

  "Yeah," Scotty said, glowering over his not-very-fashionable glasses with hands on his hips. "Plus, I meant 'bitch’ in the wuss-cheater way, but playful. I didn't mean the woman-hater version of calling out your sister as a bitch."

  The big man stepped forward, and once again, Shilloh had to stop him.

  "Maybe just don't keep saying anyone's sister is a bitch?"

  "But I was explaining that I didn't mean that sort of bitch."

  The drunk man jabbed a finger into Scotty's chest. "I'm going to make you my bitch. How about that?"

  The woman, who was still playing the pinball machine, yelled something over her shoulder, but no one heard.

  Scotty was staring at the hand that had just been used to poke him. Something about his eyes had gone very still and very distant, like he was observing the finger through crosshairs from a great distance. "Don't touch me."

  "What are you going to do now? I'm not some girl to scream at."

  "Boys!" Shilloh yelled. "Come on! No one wants a fight here."

  From the crowd, she heard the voice of her onesie-clad friend, "I want a fight. Fuck them both up, Shilloh!"

  "Not helping!"

  "Not trying to help."

  That was as far as the talking went before all hell broke loose. The huge bodybuilder reached out to shove Scotty. His hand never got that far. With a big martial arts 'kiya', the man's hand was smacked aside with—and I shit you not—a mother fucking nunchuck.

  Shilloh was so shocked to see a nunchuck swung in real life that she was momentarily frozen. That moment was all the time it took for Scotty to take several steps back and begin whirling the weapons expertly. The steroid sommelier pulled his hand back, all the veins in his head standing out. Next thing she knew, he was pushing her aside to rush the skinny man.

  The whirling spinning weapons accelerated only to immediately fly out of the bane's hands, flapping through the air like a gangly bird on acid. By the time they had bounced off a meaty forearm raised in front of the muscle-bound idiot's head, the two prongs of a taser had already pierced his thin shirt, wire trailing back to the handgun-looking device in Scotty's hand. With a final kung-fu noise, he activated the electricity, and the meathead went completely stiff.

  He fell into his sister, knocking her away from the pinball machine.

  "What the fuck!" she screamed, even as Shilloh gaped at the man who had just landed on the ground.

  "Tilt that, bitch!" Scotty yelled at the siblings.

  The woman, no longer playful, screamed back something incoherent while pulling the taser from her brother's chest.

  "So," the skinny bane said, hands reloading a new cartridge onto the tip of the taser with near supernatural levels of precision, "I can't get your number then?"

  Shilloh tried to step in front of the angry sister with her arms spread, but was shoved to the side. She stormed up to Scotty, face reddening as she yelled what the dryad presumed was the name of her brother.

  The sister raised her hands, fingers clawed like she wanted to rake his face with her nails.

  "I don't fight women!" Scotty yelled, letting the weapons tip drop into a retention pose against his torso.

  That didn't stop her.

  But Scotty did. The second her arms began whipping towards him, all the hesitation left his face. He took a rapid hop forward and launched a massive football kick straight into the onrushing woman's groin.

  She fell, his ankle got caught in her legs, and he was forced to stumble to the side, firing his taser from the hip at one of the brothers' friends. That man went rigid. But, because he had been running at Scotty when his knees locked, he fell with a tremendous thud.

  Damn. He didn't fight women, but the dude certainly seemed good at dropping bitches.

  That was all she had time to see before the bar fight moved to envelop her. Friends of the brother and sister rushed in. Bystanders moved to block them.

  The brother was trying to get to his feet, but was delayed by the amount of tangled wire he was trying to toss away from himself.

  A calloused hand grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to turn around. Someone larger, tall, bearded, and reeking of poor oral hygiene and hops started yelling in her face.

  She said 'started' because before he got more than a breath in, Birch sprinted over, screaming "Cowabunga!"

  The impish, beautiful woman in her onesie leaped off the floor, turned so her legs were parallel to the ground, and kicked both feet into the yelling man's chest.

  It didn't help much. He stumbled only a few steps, whereas she cursed and fell on her ass. Or, more accurately, on the meathead brother who was still trying to get up. She fell with her pointy shoulder directly into his stomach.

  "You fucking bitch!" he screamed.

  He grabbed her arm and her hair. Birch yelled in pain, and Shilloh felt the world slow. Her heart went from racing like a scared rabbit to thundering like the gavel of a judge sentencing a line of people to death.

  Whump thump.

  Birch scratched at his face. He shoved her off of him, and when she landed next to him, he lashed out, kicking out from his place on the ground with the bottom of his shoe.

  Shilloh was not proud of what she did next. But, in her defense, that was Her Person. Her magic activated, her Wild Talent aiming to seize the world and work its singular trick. At the same time—high off a rage that was exactly the same as what she had felt when that evil motherfucking owl had set up Fraulein to be hurt— she stepped forward and pulled the dagger out of her tall boots.

  She automatically whirled it in her hand so it was tip up, and she swung her closed fist so that the pommel sticking out just past her pinky slammed into the muscle-filled behemoth's cheek.

  She hit him three times like that. It was only when Birch's hands gripped her wrist and pinned it to the floor that she came to.

  Her friend was completely serious, and she was yelling over the fight.

  The exact words were lost to her, but Shilloh got the gist. She needed to sheathe the knife before this went from a brawl to someone spotting a weapon and shooting her.

  She secreted it away, and then they were up, sprinting towards a back door. Someone got in the way and stolen nunchucks whirled over Birch's head before colliding with the person's body. Ahead of them, a thin-looking Bane was frozen halfway out the bar's backdoor, staring at Birch with a fussy, affronted look as the psycho in a unicorn onesie swatting away with his stolen weapons.

  NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

  Piracy Notice: If you’re reading this anywhere other than Scribble Hub, Royal Road, or my Patreon then this is pirated. Please let me know by going to the Jeffrey Nix website’s contact area so I can get really annoyed, complain to my cat, have her tell me this never would have happened if I had just gone back for a Ph. D, send a takedown notice, and get back to writing.

  Alias isn't on any of the genre rising star lists. Usually, we're top 50 in Urban fantasy, romance, Multiple POV, and some others. If you could leave some stars, it might help. I got some advice and will be looking into ads soon, but this would really help while I try to find the time to knock those out. Also, it would greatly improve my own morale.