Derrek approached their table, three of his friends in tow. They all wore the shield-and-sword emblem, confirming that they were part of the Vanguard. It wasn't as noisy in the karaoke bar as it had been earlier, but if Dane had not had beyond A-rank hearing, he might have missed what the man was trying to say.

  They stopped at the edge of the table.

  "Well," he said, voice carrying just far enough to reach the nearby tables without turning into a shout. "You know a janitor is supposed to show up after all the puking is done."

  Dane looked up.

  Derrek's gaze dropped immediately to the glass in his hand, a puzzled look forming as if he genuinely couldn't reconcile what he was seeing.

  "Soda?" he said, the corner of his mouth pulling into the kind of smirk someone wore before taking a shot at a friend. "You're sitting in here, taking up space, sipping soda like a kid?"

  It was a weak joke, and even his own group seemed to recognize it too late. He shot them a look that told them they had missed a cue, and the men let out a staggered, forced chuckle that landed a second behind where it should have.

  Dane set his glass down carefully, the condensation leaving a faint ring against the wood.

  "I'll see you tomorrow," he said, directing it at Ethan.

  Ethan met his eyes for a moment, reading something there, then gave a small nod.

  "Alright," he said. "See you in the training hall."

  Dane stood and began to walk away. He didn't look back at Derrek as he stepped past him, not forcing space, simply moving as if there wasn't anything there to block him in the first place.

  Derrek turned immediately with him, posture stiffening.

  "Hey," he said, sharper now, stepping into his path. "We're talking."

  Dane adjusted his path without breaking stride, moving around him again. He had been pulled out of the support squad by Juliet to keep him out of trouble, and now it seemed trouble had decided to follow anyway. More importantly, the man hadn't done anything that justified escalation. He was loud, abrasive, the kind of person who needed an audience to feel larger than he was, but that wasn't enough.

  "You think you can just walk away?" he said, louder now.

  Dane continued toward the exit.

  Behind him, another chair scraped.

  Ethan stood.

  He didn't raise his voice or slam his drink down; he rose to his feet, and the shift in the room that followed carried more weight than anything louder would have.

  Derrek noticed.

  He glanced past Dane toward Ethan, then back again, and something sharper crept into his smile.

  "Alright," he said. "That's how you want to play it?"

  He tilted his head slightly.

  "After we're done kicking his ass," he added, letting his voice carry cleanly now, "you're next."

  There was a brief pause before he added, almost casually, "We already made sure your mommy went to bed. Wouldn't want her interrupting again."

  That was when the room started to move.

  Not all at once, and not in a panic, but enough that it was obvious if you were looking for it. Conversations cut short, chairs pushed back, people drifted away with the practiced indifference of those who didn't want to be part of what was about to happen.

  Dane stopped.

  It wasn't the insult that did it.

  It was the direction this was headed. It was one thing if they wanted to posture at him, but Ethan had done nothing besides sit at a table and share a drink. If this continued, someone else would get caught up in his squabbles.

  He turned.

  Derrek was already stepping forward again, rolling his shoulders as if settling into something he'd been expecting from the start.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Dane didn't argue. He reached out, placing a hand on Derrek's shoulder with a casual certainty that didn't match the tension in the room, before Derrek could turn, before he could react, before anyone could even fully process what they were seeing he vanished.

  One moment he was there, the next the space he occupied was empty, the transition so abrupt that it didn't register as movement so much as absence.

  For a second, no one moved.

  Then Ethan looked at the three men who had come in with Derrek.

  He didn't step forward. Didn't raise his voice. He just looked at them, steady and level, like he was waiting for them to decide what kind of night they wanted this to be.

  "Do you really want to do this?" he asked.

  The three of them hesitated, glancing at the space where Derrek had been, then back at Ethan.

  One of them shifted his weight, scratching at the back of his neck.

  "Uh," he said, looking briefly at the others before settling on Ethan again, "can you just… say we did if he asks?"

  Ethan held their gaze for a moment longer, then gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of his head.

  "Get out of here," he said.

  They didn't need to be told twice.

  The sparring grounds opened around them without warning, and Derrek hit the stone hard, not because of any force Dane had applied, but because his body hadn't caught up to where it had been placed. He dropped to his hands and knees, breath hitching as his stomach revolted against the sudden displacement.

  He coughed, then gagged, turning his head just in time.

  "What the hell..." he managed, voice rough as he pushed himself upright, still unsteady.

  Dane materialized a short distance away from him, posture relaxed, as if the transition had required no effort at all.

  "I didn't feel like paying for damages," he said.

  Derrek wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, blinking hard as his vision steadied. Whatever disorientation remained was quickly buried under anger.

  "The hell was that?" he demanded, straightening.

  Dane didn't answer.

  Derrek drew in a breath, forcing his shoulders back, trying to reclaim control of something that had slipped.

  "Fine," he said. "I was hoping to get my friends a little bit of XP tonight, but if I have to get it by myself, I won't complain."

  He lifted his chin slightly, his gaze going unfocused for a brief moment, that distant look of someone interacting with something only they could see. A prompt flashed before Dane.

  Derrek Hale has initiated a duel. Do you wish to accept? Y/N

  Dane didn't respond. He didn't even acknowledge it. Since becoming system-augmented, he had never used the feature, and there was no reason to start now, not when he didn't know whether or not it would lock him into a death match.

  Derrek's jaw tightened.

  "…you think you're too good to accept?" he said.

  Still nothing.

  "If you won't accept a duel like a man," he snapped, the last of the control slipping, "then I'll just kill you like a coward."

  He moved first.

  Fast enough that it would have been impressive in the lounge, against someone unprepared, it might have ended things immediately.

  Dane shifted just enough to let it pass.

  Derrek followed through with another strike, then another, chaining them together with practiced aggression, each one designed to force a reaction, to create an opening through pressure alone.

  Dane didn't counter. He didn't block in any conventional sense. He wasn't where the attacks needed him to be, each movement taking him just far enough out of line that the force passed by without ever finding purchase.

  Derrek's face began to flush, a bead of sweat forming and trailing down along his temple.

  A flaming kick snapped past Dane's guard, close enough that the heat singed the edge of one of his eyelashes.

  Dane adjusted immediately, not surprised so much as recalibrating, recognizing the shift in tempo and the added layer Derrek was trying to introduce. The pattern was a simple one-two combination feeding into heavier finishers, but now there was mana woven into it.

  Dane gave him nothing.

  Derrek's breathing started to change, subtle at first, then more obvious as the strain built. His timing slipped by fractions, small enough to be ignored at first, then large enough that the gaps became visible.

  Dane hadn't moved more than a few steps from where he started.

  "How about we call it a draw?" he asked.

  Derrek let out a short, harsh laugh.

  "I am not done."

  Mana gathered in his hand, drawn too quickly and without the control it needed. Heat built fast, unstable at the edges as he forced it into shape.

  He threw it anyway.

  The explosion tore across the space between them, fire blooming outward in a violent surge that cracked the stone where it struck.

  Derrek staggered back from the recoil, the backlash traveling up his arm, skin along it burning where the energy had turned on him. He grinned through the pain, breath coming hard as he looked up.

  Dane wasn't there.

  The scorched ground stretched empty in front of him.

  "Yeah," Derrek said, the word rough as he tried to steady himself. "Should've known. You'd pussy out."

  His legs gave out.

  He hit the ground hard, consciousness slipping as his reserves finally emptied.

  A few seconds passed before the air near one of the training dummies shimmered faintly.

  Dane stepped out from behind it, the distortion around him fading as the thin layer of mana peeled away from his skin. It was something he had been working on before he came back to earth. He called it mana skin, and he had based it on Ada's ward. It didn't negate every attack like her skill had, but it would be enough for anything lower than B rank.

  He looked down at Derrek for a moment, then bent and lifted him without effort.

  The walk to the medical ward was quiet, the weight over his shoulder insignificant.

  He handed Derrek off without explanation and turned back the way he came.

  No one stopped him.

  The support quarters felt smaller when he got to his quarters. The room was barely large enough for the bunk and a small stretch of floor, closer to the cramped transit pods he had seen in old recordings than anything meant for long-term living.

  The light in his cubby flickered.

  Dane lay back on his bunk, lifting his hands just enough to study them in the dim, inconsistent light, turning them slightly as if expecting to find something different there.

  After a long moment, he rolled onto his side and faced the wall.

  Tomorrow, he would talk to Ethan.

  For now, he needed to rest.