Chapter 208: Tink’s Big Win!
After Zoey’s successful infiltration, Tink, Peter, and Jelena were busy following Prometheus’s plan to the letter. They entered the Peacekeeper’s headquarters together. Tink blissfully played on their phone that Zoey bought them while Peter and Jelena went over to the counter to talk to the Peacekeeper behind the desk. The male officer greeted the two with a professional smile.
“Hello. How can I help you two today?” He greeted.
“We would like to file several missing persons reports.” Peter smiled as he plopped down a thick document.
“S-Several?” The Peacekeeper was astonished to hear this.
It wasn’t like multiple people could just go missing out of the blue for no reason. He needed more information before he could raise a fuss about this. “Can you give me more information about this? The names of people missing, how long they have been missing, your relation to those missing, how you came about this information, etc?”
“All the information we gathered is on here. It’s your job to do the hard stuff now.” Jelena crossed her arms as she dragged Peter away.
“Hey! W-Wait! You guys could help out a lot of people! Don’t you want to help these people be found sooner?!” The officer shouted, clutching the document while attempting to get up from behind his desk.
Tink followed Peter and Jelena out of the building, still joyfully tapping away at their phone. The trio stopped quite some distance away from the Peacekeeper building. “So, what now?” Tink asked the two despite already knowing a basic idea of their plans.
“Now we wait and see how the Dhara Peacekeepers respond to the fact that dozens of people have gone missing,” Peter answered.
“Will they mobilize everything they have to search for the missing people and the group responsible for their disappearance, or just act like nothing is happening?” Jelena seemed to already believe she knew the answer.
“Sounds boring.” Tink blew a raspberry.
“What would a fairie like you know? Aren’t you just Winters’s helper? Don’t think that just because your master is gone, you can use her authority to say whatever you want.” Jelena narrowed her eyes at Tink.
“...” Tink stopped playing their game as they locked eyes with Jelena.
“I’m only going to say this nicely once, so listen up.” Tink smiled, their voice still as cheerful as ever, but now it had a strangeness behind it. “Don’t ever treat me like I’m beneath you or anyone else. I’m a free-thinking living being just like you, so treat me like it.” A not-so-little amount of mahna began to consolidate around Tink’s body.
Both Jelena and Peter were kind of speechless at this. A fairie talking back to magjistars? No, wait, that wasn’t the crazy part. It was the fact that a fairie just threatened them! You know, the magji race who were made for the sole purpose of serving magjistars?!
“Were you made wrong?” Jelena asked honestly. She couldn’t fathom a fairie behaving this way otherwise.
Tink calmly ‘requested’ Peter to hold their phone. Peter felt unable to refuse this request. When he tried to speak up to try to defuse the situation, Tink glanced at him with a smile still on their face. Whatever he was about to say was silenced by the oppressive wave of Tink’s mahna.
“I’m going to kick your ass so that you’ll treat me with more respect!” Tink informed Jelena.
But with them being around the size of a person’s palm, having a voice as cute as a button, and just being a fairie prevented Jelena from feeling any type of fear whatsoever. While the amount of mahna possessed by this fairie surprised Jelena, it didn’t mean she was scared of it. Fairies weren’t a frightening race in any capacity. Everyone knew this. Even if there were a fairie rebellion one day, where they got fed up with serving magjistars, absolutely no one would be afraid of such a thing.
This was because, fairies were specifically created for serving magjistars. Magjistars had no use for servants with the possibility to surpass or match them in magji prowess. Fairies were capable of having connate magji or learning learnable magji, but all had their full potential restricted. This restricted them to more lifestyle magji and to non-combative roles in magji society. Even children of other races were more useful than fairies when it came to fighting.
“That’s a good one. I’d love to see the day when-" Jelena began to say, but before she could finish her words, Tink's unexpected attack abruptly knocked her off her feet.
Tink swiftly flew towards her after chanting a spell. Without hesitation, they delivered a powerful punch to Jelena's cheek. The force of the blow caused Jelena's head to whip to the side, sending her flying off her feet. As she slid across the hard concrete ground, a mixture of shock and disbelief washed over her.
Jelena didn’t know whether it was out of embarrassment, rage, or confusion that she exploded with anger. Just as the realization that she was knocked down and even hurt by a fairie began to set in, Tink didn’t bother being the courteous fighter. Tink was taught by the Zoey Winters! An experienced fighter who has been in all sorts of battles ever since she got caught up in the world of magji.
That fighter has long since taught them without even putting it into words that one should always press their advantage when it's available to them. So, before Jelena could even get off the ground, Tink appeared over them with their fist pulled back. They let Jelena have it with multiple rapid-fire punches straight to the face empowered by mahna. The ground cracked and crumbled from the force of Tink’s punches until Jelena’s face was bloody, bruised, and swollen. It was only when she still sensed a hint of defiance from Jelena and attempted to bring down both of their fists on Jelena’s face that Peter intervened.
A harsh gust of magji wind blew Tink away. “I believe she’s learned her lesson now…” Peter carefully held the unconscious Jelena in his arms. He was pointing a Horsetail Whisk directly at them if they attempted to continue. A familiar bloodthirsty smile was slowly fixing itself on Tink’s bloody face as they cracked their knuckles.
Something deep inside of them sounded like it was cracking apart, bit by bit. Tink wanted to continue fighting for some reason. Peter wasn’t even the one to disrespect them, but they really wanted to see what he was made of. Instead of being seduced by this new, unfamiliar feeling welling up inside of them, Tink utilized the breathing exercise taught to them by Zoey for when they were feeling not themself!
It took a few moments before Tink could look at Peter without feeling like they wanted to see how strong he was in comparison to themselves. “Okay!” Tink’s cheerful voice exclaimed. “I’m good now! Let’s head back to the hideout and wait or whatever!”
Tink didn’t fault Peter for continuing to aim his magji tool at them. In fact, it filled them with pride and confidence! They have proven themselves stronger than a B-Grade magjistar! And it was all thanks to her best friend’s teachings! Tink didn’t even have to rely on their secret weapon to beat Jelena up! All it took was masterful control over their mahna and her new magji.
Combo magji! Thanks to Zoey teaching them Combo Magji, it didn’t matter that half their potential was locked away at creation. If they got a high enough combo, they go over their inborn limit and could be just as strong or stronger than anyone! But Zoey didn’t only teach Tink about Combo Magji, she also taught them everything she knew about fighting and magji! They were best friends, so why wouldn’t they share everything with each other?! Zoey wanted Tink to be safe, and Tink wanted Zoey to be safe.
Even right now, while Tink was leading them back to the hideout, they were frantically texting Zoey about their big victory over Jelena and how they beat her up without even breaking a sweat. Then Tink talked about how Peter was scared out of his mind after seeing how strong and powerful they were. Even now, Tink texted about how he couldn’t stop glancing at them out of fear that they’d beat him up, too, if he said one wrong thing.
As Zoey responded to Tink’s texts, she was very supportive toward them. She was fully on Tink’s side and said that Jelena deserved to be beaten up for what she said to Tink. In fact, Zoey didn’t like her from the beginning. She would’ve beat her up for Tink if she were there! Tink couldn’t help but send multiple heart emojis as pride and happiness filled their heart. As good as it would feel if their best friend defended them, Tink thought it was best that they defended themselves. While they had no plans of making magjistars treat all fairies with respect and dignity, Tink certainly would make sure they did so for them personally.