[Intro] Explosive entry

Wearing a blue short-sleeve t-shirt and black skirt with white tennis shoes, Victoria wore the Red Dragon Inn apron over her clothes and was behind the counter slinging drinks for the customers. It was a fairly good day to sling drinks and she was making decent money for the inn, but the real money came at night and on the weekend. Those times tended to be when the most drinks were ordered and when Victoria was the busiest. Unfortunately for her today was a weekday; those were still busy days but were nothing like the weekend rush. Still, she was thankful for the side job because it brought in money, it let her talk to the customers in an "official" capacity, and it was a nice change of pace from life-or-death battles.

Victoria had just served a martini to an affluent businessman in an impeccable blue three-piece suit when she heard a crash coming from the castle that was part of the guild hall. Without missing a beat Victoria raced from behind the counter as the customers ducked for cover under the wooden tables. As one of the guild's strongest mages, she took it upon herself to keep the guild hall safe from any and all threats because when someone threatened the guild hall, they threatened the brown-haired mage and her interests.

"I'll be back in a few minutes!" Victoria called out to Will before bolting from the inn. She was out the door before Will could give verbal confirmation that he had heard her. There was an understanding that guild business came before anything else, but she did not want to abuse the man's generosity by letting her work here and not give him notice when she had to leave for guild business.

-Outside the castle-

Victoria hurried to the castle and weaved through a crowd of onlookers hovering just outside the castle. Gaia was already on the scene and was wearing a nice lilac outfit, which was a stark contrast to Victoria's everyday wardrobe. Lately Ratatoskr had taken up hurling insults about the brunette's limited wardrobe towards her to get a rise out of her. So far Victoria had not taken the bait, but the loud-mouthed squirrel was asking for a beating. Only the wrath of Ryo, Aura, and the Guild Aces had prevented the brunette from giving the overconfident squirrel the beating he was begging for.

"Hey Gaia, what's going... on..." Victoria asked the bespectacled Ace but trailed off when she saw a small girl with magenta hair lying on the ground. The brunette could see that the small girl had suffered injuries that exposed... machinery? Victoria's heartbeat quickened. This was something she had never dealt with before.

Victoria stood at Gaia's right side and tried to figure out where the youth could have come from. Victoria hoped that there would be no conflict today and that this was just a strange accident. Still, the brunette would fight if there was a need to.

Victoria blinked when the small robot girl asked if she or Gaia was her master. The robot girl had beautiful golden eyes that reminded the brunette of her mentor Florence, but she was completely without clothing, which was completely awkward for the brunette. Still, Victoria could not detect any hostility from the new arrival, even with her new ability to analyze body language for lies. Either the robot was unreadable or she was not here with hostile intent. Victoria opted to believe the latter and put aside any thoughts of combat with the new arrival.

"I'm not your master either, ummm.... what's your name?" Victoria asked the diminutive robot. She looked away while Gaia used her cloak to shroud the girl from observers and spare everyone from the sheer awkwardness that came from interacting with a naked robot girl in broad daylight. Victoria was glad that the Sabertooth Ace could think on her feet because the former was at a loss as to what to do to remedy the situation. Once the youth was shrouded Victoria looked in the direction of the covered figure and spoke to her again.

" By the way, I'm Victoria. Victoria Sheridan." Victoria introduced herself to the small robot girl with golden eyes. This would be only Victoria's third encounter with a robot since dealing with Dr. Hanlon's creations in Motor City and seeing that creepy Entertainer robot when she visited his lab to see the DH-40 Chiron he had created. It was safe to say that the brunette knew nothing about robotics or robot repair, so she was not the mage for the job of fixing the new arrival.

" I don't know how to fix her, Gaia. We'll need to find someone who can." Victoria admitted to the Ace. Maybe Gaia knew someone who could help with their unusual situation.

"Um, sure, Gaia." Victoria replied as she took M.A.I.'s other arm, worried about whether onlookers would think that Sabertooth was up to something sketchy. Thankfully the respected Rising Star Gaia giving her cloak to M.A.I. made it look more like an effort to help the new girl instead of a kidnapping in broad daylight. Having nearly been a victim of human traffickers herself, public perception concerning the sight of two young women taking away a third one had set Victoria on edge. She was reluctant to lay a hand on M.A.I. until Gaia had requested her help.

Unlike the people of Ace of Spades, the people of Capital Crocus could have cared less if youth like M.A.I. fell into the clutches of human traffickers and disappeared. Victoria would not be surprised if the Capital Crocus police were paid off to turn a blind eye to slavers roaming the streets in search of street kids to catch for their nefarious ends. She would also not be surprised if the slavers were clued in to where they could find "merchandise" by wealthy people offended that there were poor people who had the temerity to live in "their" city.

Victoria disliked that city so much that she only tolerated going to it for the sake of her job as a Sabertooth mage. Everything about it brought back bad memories for her. Memories of how people who should have helped her could not or would not because they thought that street kids were trash or they were being bought off to ignore the problem so that slavers could make it go away. Beneath the glitz and glamor of that city was a lot of filth and corruption.

Victoria pulled herself out of the intense dislike she had for Capital Crocus and focused on M.A.I., who said in a lot of words that she could fix herself. Victoria was intrigued by that. M.A.I. had to be an advanced model for that feature to be included.

"You said that if you have the right stuff, you can fix yourself? Is there any limit to what problems you can fix?" Victoria asked M.A.I. with genuine interest.