Newly Broke Heroine! [Book One Complete, Cozy Fantasy Adventure]

Varith finally unfroze from his position and advanced toward her. "Just give up, Fiona. You never could stop what was coming back then, and you can't stop this now. You're just a merchant now, not a warrior."

"Merchant of fortune!" She corrected it with a wave of her hand. "But you know something, Varith? I don't care who you were. I don't know what I did to hurt you. I went down swinging for my world, and it was probably the one thing in my life I did right. But you're clearly off the deep end from your experience of being a victim of a transdimensional kidnapping. I take it back, you don't need a good bashing, you need a therapist for massive psychological trauma."

"Fiona, I hope you're saving a whole damn orphanage, because it's getting a little too toasty for my liking here!" Doug shouted over the relay. She could hear his voice dully past the steel door, along with several bangs as they tried to force it open. "We're gonna get roasted here in a minute or two. What is going on out there?"

"Dramatic villain clash!" She shouted at the door with a slight twist of her head. "Doug, you better get clear of the door! I'm about to do something really stupid!"

Varith's response was to summon another spear of that crackling energy, hefting it like a javelin. "No. You're not. I'm about to topple that fool of a king, just like I did for Vale's predecessor king. No one shed tears for them, because he was the one who yanked at the chains to every collar in this damn city for his amusement. I fought, bled, and destroyed myself for this chance. Karlin stole from Aegortin and left me holding the bag. His scaly head will be mounted on my mantle–"

Fiona had done it. She got him monologuing. She focused on the puddle of molten gold flowing, and could hear something.

Whispers. And not from Wingding, either. She hadn't been imagining it earlier. The gold spoke in a voiceless tone, scratchy whispers–but they filled her with courage.

Lost in the shadows.

Stolen child.

Usurper.

Tyrant.

Heiress to my duty.

All the voices came at once, nearly overwhelming her, while Varith raged about–traitorous dragons? Yeah, he was fine with running out the clock. She felt a trickle of power in her fist, and focused on the liquified gold and tried to call it to her like her hammer.

She felt a tug, but no effect. She needed more of it for the intended effect. And there was already one huge gaping crack in the smelter.

She put on a lopsided smile and threw her hammer at the smelter wall Varith watched the weapon sail through the air, and the hammer impacted with a massive clang, sundering the smelter wall.

He turned, eyes narrowed. "What are you doing? Is your aim that terrible?"

"Super secret techniques!" She was, in fact, about to do something utterly insane. She heaved the weapon back to her hand, but the hammer remained embedded in the side of the smelter, cracking and peeling the siding further.

A dribble of liquified gold oozed out. Another good hit or two, and she'd burst it open.

Varith didn't waste time trying to figure out her super secret technique, and threw his energy lance. A dodge didn't quite cut it, and her mark-powered shield shattered from the concussion of the near-miss, but protected her from the worst of it.

Varith stalked forward, curved blade readied. "You think you're some kind of hero in some wish fulfillment game, Fi! Did you ever stop to ask what happened to the other summons? What they endured? We're disposable cannon fodder who are only useful for so long. This second life is a cruel joke!"

She pulled on the recall enchantment with all her might, but the hammer was stuck! Molten gold seeped out from the crack in the smelter wall, slowly building into an increasingly sized hazard, while Fiona ducked and dodged from Varith, their battle flowing across the floor. She forced more energy along her forearm, reshaping the golden barrier–a shield of the heart!

The last-second barrier stopped the strikes from his sword, and his purple energy faltered. He'd pushed himself too hard and was now relying on pure brute force, pressing the blade dangerously close and sneering at her. He was reckless, and she tried to grapple in the close quarters, wedging him between a support column and some piping.

She needed to pry that hammer loose and get that gold out of the smelter, or this wouldn't work! More worryingly, the building was still on fire, which was getting increasingly perilous as debris rained down from the second floor. One walkway was crushed under glass and twisted steel, and metal groaned and buckled as the sheer weight collapsed it.

Yet Varith remained focused, in all his rage.

"Why couldn't you have stayed dead, Fiona? Why did you come to Vale? You should have just smacked that arrogant, pasty-faced failure into the next kingdom, and stayed away!"

Fiona finally found an opening and grabbed his sword arm after jarring the blade aside with a shielding counter, grabbed him and rang his head into the steel piping, stunning him long enough for her to focus all her willpower into summoning her weapon. She saw it budge, the metal shuddering in protest. She almost had it!

Varith's power flared to life in his hand, and an arc of energy latched onto her armor, like the world's most uncool lasso. She dug her boots into the ground, but Varith heaved with all his might, an inhuman strength in that pull that dragged her to the ground, fighting against the unnatural chain that split to try to wrap around her. She partially succeeded and was able to slow her motion by gripping the lasso, even though touching it caused her hands to burn in utter agony. She steeled herself against the pain, biting down through the pain, and shattered one link.

But she was still being dragged to him, his eager blade waiting as he looped the energy chain around his arm like he was coiling an extension cord. "Seeing you here, Fiona? It hurts. It hurts to look at you, knowing you blindly believe you're the hero. You've been defined by nothing but failure."

She screamed as she broke another link of that energy lasso, and could feel blisters on her palms–the energy radiated through her gauntlets, unable to fully protect her. Varith tried to plunge his sword down, but she'd broken enough of the chain segments to free her legs, and allowed her a swift kick to his knee. He stumbled backward, howling in pain.

It was all the opening she needed to try to grab her weapon with its recall enchantment with one last full-bodied heave. And this time, it worked. The Bahn hammer finally popped out of the bulging smelter wall like a champagne cork, more gold spilling out. She heaved it with all her might, screaming in fury as the weapon sailed true.

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The weapon cracked the wall completely, and the metal could take no more. She heaved the weapons enchanted recall, and it popped out to dramatic effect as it came out like a cork from a champagne bottle.

A champagne bottle filled with golden lava that spilled out in a pressurized gush, igniting anything that could burn, and a wash of heat flowed through the room.

Yet, when she grabbed her weapon, she noted how cool the grip was, even though the hammer head was dripping with molten golden material that instantly fused to the weapon head and smoothed over. It was almost as if the Aurelium absorbed into the weapon, the little that had adhered to it.

But the biggest hazard was the jet of molten metal that came out of the hole in the smelter, and both of them darted backward to avoid the deadly material, bubbling and pooling along the floor. Fiona might be able to manipulate gold telekinetically, but she doubted taking a swim in it would improve her skin health.

Her feet came to rest on a scaffolding adjacent to the collapsed wall, where the gold slowly flowed towards. Varith leered at her from the other side. It still amazed her how much of the molten metal was in the smelter–how much had Karlin processed?

And now she had the high ground, with a river of molten material beneath her. She hoped Varith hadn't seen this scene, because it would end even worse for him. She held her hand out, trying to control the gold the same way she flung the coins.

The king of broken hearts stared as multiple tons of gold shifted, like the world's most dangerous slime creature, sliding and melting through the debris. She raised her hand vertically to get the form she needed, and split the gold amalgam to form two crude vertical walls, like a pair of primitive hands. Fiona felt a drain of power–trying to control and manipulate this much was far beyond what she'd been able to do before, and she felt a spiking pain in her chest that told her this magic was coming at a steep cost.

"How are you doing that?!" he shouted in disbelief, stumbling backward to avoid the molten gold.

"I told you. I'm a merchant of fortune." Even with her flame-resistant armor and elixir, keeping that liquified gold that close to her body was a little much, and her body was covered in a sheen of sweat. She used the gold and shouted out in fury, pushing debris and twisted metal out of the way–or melting it, as might be the case.

Varith threw another lance of energy–he was getting so predictable with that, and he was fuming. His shot was poorly aimed, and she barely had to swerve to avoid it. It impacted the wall in a blast of violet sparks, ending his attack harmlessly.

She'd moved enough of the debris to squeeze through a narrow opening. She made her move and dashed across the still-smoldering hot floor, the molten gold parting away from her seemingly in response to her proximity. She thrust the liquid to form a shielding barrier, and Varith's blasts sent molten fragments flying. One near miss singed her hair–another bounced off her armor, and even with the protection, she felt the searing heat on her back as she lifted at the security barrier, straining every muscle in her body to the breaking point.

A set of claws, human hands, and paws all slid underneath to help assist in the maneuver. "Fiona, the roof is about to come caving in!" Bonnie shouted out and used her wand to manipulate a short beam of metal under the shutter door. It creaked and buckled, but held. Fiona didn't waste any time and dashed through, just in time to see Varith blast apart the golden shield, looking at them with irritation as he strode across.

Fiona let the molten gold collapse onto the floor, splashing dangerously close to his position, and he hopped back to avoid the material. The terrain between them was now impassable. She was exhausted to the breaking point, and every fiber of her body felt strained, seared, or electrocuted. Doug helped her to her feet when she stumbled and waved everyone to her, gasping for breath.

Fiona dared a glance back toward her foe. Varith stood there, arms folded and appearing calm in a safe spot above the flames, but his eyes radiated hatred. He summoned another energy lance. "How did you get so lucky? Why did Fortune let you land in a place where they didn't exploit and try to use you the second you touched down?"

He heaved the lance at her, and she threw Doug to the side, hoping her armor would take the brunt of it. Off to her right, she saw a flick of something silver.

An energy barrier materialized around her body, and kept the deadly lance from piercing into her, bright violet energy surging in every direction. The impact staggered Fiona, and she reeled backward in pain, but alive. She craned her body from her kneeling position to see Bonnie tensed, panting heavily, but still keeping her enchantment holding strong.

"Fiona made her own fortune, Varith. No one gave it to her, and the vast majority of it wasn't in gold coins and cute shoes. Hell, the richness she brings to a lot of people isn't gold. It's that never-ending energy that I love about her. It's the unspoken promise she'll be there for you, no matter what happens."

I will marry this vixen if Greg doesn't put a ring on it. it wasn't the strangest thought Fiona had had of late. Meanwhile, Varith's face morphed into twisted amusement.

"Oh, a bitch with some bite, huh?" Varith threw another lance at Bonnie, and Fiona cast out her shield of the heart to deflect it--staggering into Bonnie. the protections held, and Varith looked at them, and the gathered workers. Then, he looked upward.

His expression contorted in fury. "What about those of us who didn't get a fair chance, witch? Your world and its gods rip people from their planets and their homes, with no recourse! I wasn't given a second life, I was given a second hell!"

He cast the lance upward, and Fiona gasped as she realized what he was aiming for--the compromised roof, and the structure supporting it. She drew deep from the last of her energy and raised up the molten gold, just as the lance impacted in a blast of stinging violet energy, and bringing down burning structure and twisted metal.

"Fi!"

Bonnie's warning to not overexert herself was promptly ignored, and the solidified golden barrier strained under the immense weight. Bonnie put reinforcing wards on the liquid metal, but they were never meant for use on a shifting substance like this. Fiona's arms wavered under the strain.

"What did they promise you, Fiona?!" Varith shouted across the expanse, ignoring Bonnie. "Was it gold? Power? A life free from all your screw-ups, a clean slate?"

She had no idea what Varith was talking about, holding her side as she rose. "What are you on about, you psycho?!" she demanded, her arms shaking as she put every ounce into keeping that protection above them.

"Your mark." He pointed with purpose at her. "Do you have any idea what you carry? The burden you bear? They wouldn't have given it to you if they didn't offer something you value above all else. That's why you're here. You're carrying out their will. You're another pawn in their games."

Was this the blank spot she couldn't remember? Back then, between when things had...ended…and her waking moments on Cepalune? She chose to answer from the heart, because it felt right.

"I don't know anything about promises, Varith. No god or goddess could fix my screw-up. There's nothing they could have promised I would have wanted. Except to tell someone something before I charged off to my doom..." She paused.

She'd said goodbye. She'd never said she was sorry, as she dashed off the bus to go to her imminent death. "...To tell someone they mattered dearly to me, and my broken dreams should never have gotten between us." She hung her head low.

"Fi..." Bonnie spoke a single word, her face somber.

"Bonnie, when I got here, with a second lease on life? I thought I'd lost everything. I didn't. I found you guys." Fiona glanced at Varith, hands slack by his side. "Varith, do you know what the greatest fortune of all is? It's the people who want you in their life, through all the highs and lows. It took losing my life to realize that."

Then, the violent energy faded on Varith's arms, and he gave a begrudging nod.

She would not waste the moment, straining under the pressure of keeping that debris at bay with the golden shell. "Everyone, grab hold and stay close! We're in for a rough ride, whatever you do, don't let go!" Fiona screamed out between pants.

Eight workers, one kitsune, an undersized dragon, a dark feathered ranger, her snack-thief-in-arms, and a good friend all grabbed hold of her, forming a short chain among each other with linked arms.

She focused on the shop, and this time, it felt different. This was sheer pain, trying to teleport a dozen people. She gazed at Bonnie, singed and at her absolute limits, yet her spirit endured in her vibrant blue eyes. Greg, who gave her a knowing nod, the single silent affirmation that he knew she could do this.

And Doug…he looked at her differently now. Not with scorn or derision…but something else. Not admiration…but respect.

Steel rendered and screeched above them. Glass rained down like crystalline daggers as the roof buckled under the flames. Fiona sucked in her breath, and summoned the last of her strength to get them home.

She felt something break. Not physically, but through her body, like shattering motes as the world disappeared in a pop of white light.