A Human’s Guide to Surviving Magical Mishaps by Kit Bryan
Rule 63- If you can't beat the crowd, join it.

Ashton stumbles back and hits the bar, completely stunned. We were on the lookout for a fae woman, not the human guy who is currently rushing after Ashton aiming to hit him again. This time Ashton is ready and manages to duck away fron the guy before the blow comes.

"Stay away from her!” The man screams. He's stumbling after Ashton almost like he's drunk, but his words are completely clear and his eyes don't look like someone who is super drunk. Stay away from who? The only woman Ashton has been standing anywhere near is me, and I don't know this psycho. Oh, I'm being dense. This is about the fae woman. Clearly she's done something to this guy to make him come after Ashton. But why? Ashton is pretty obviously able to take care of the human without issue. Sure enough, Ashton is able to grab the guy's arm and knock him out using his energy draining magic stuff. It takes a few seconds for him to pass out and he spends the time muttering at Ashton to leave his girl alone. Clearly the guy is majorly dosed up on magic. It might be late, but not so late that the place is empty and we've gathered a bit of a crowd. People are gathering closer but Lucy, Fin and I are doing our best to wave them off while Ashton checks the guy to make sure he's alright. He approaches me after a minute and hands me the man's wallet.

"Kat, can you check this for me please? I believe this man may be Jeremy Clark." he points at the driver's licence and I check for him. Ashton can read English but not amazingly and clearly he isn't confident. In this case he is correct though. "You're right. This is definitely him. I guess poor Jeremy didn't choose to abandon his wife. This is definitely going to be difficult for him to explain." I say sympathetically.

"Yes. But I do not understand the purpose of sending Jeremy Clark to attack me. The woman had to know there was no chance of him defeating me. All it did was confirm for us that she is indeed here somewhere." Ashton points out, a puzzle expression on his face.

"I was thinking that too. All she managed to do was cause a bit of drama, it's barely more than a distraction..." My eyes widen and I can see that Ashton has the same thought as me. This was a distraction.

"Quick, search for her. She is likely trying to run away. If we lose her now it will be difficult to locate her again!" Ashton says frantically. We both try to make our way towards the exit. Ashton gets caught up by the crowd, people keep asking hin what happened and if he knows who the guy is. I manage to slip through the crowd unnoticed and make it to the doorway. And... Nothing. There is no one here, pretty much everyone is over by the bar talking about the fight. If the fae woman planned to sneak out during the drama then she must have done it already. I slowly start to make my way back over to my friends when I hear Lucy screaming. I abandon all pretence of staying calm and run.

I arrive in time to see Fin throwing himself at Ashton.

"Fin stop! What are you doing?" Lucy screams and I'm relieved to see that she is unharmed. I run to her side and grab her shoulders. "What happened?" I demand.

"I don't know! I was just helping with some crowd control and I went to talk to him then he just brushed past me like I wasn't even here. He just... Attacked Ashton, like that Jeremy guy. I think the fae woman must have gotten to him." She looks completely horrified.

"It's not great, but it'll be okay. I'm pretty sure Ashton can knock Fin out without hurting him." I assure her. I turn to watch the two of them fight. Obviously this isn't ideal, and Fin is doing a lot better than Jeremy did. Mostly because he knows to avoid letting Ashton grab him and because Ashton isn't willing to hurt him but Fin is definitely trying to hurt Ashton. Lucy is clutching my hand tightly and shaking her head in denial of my words.

"No Kat that's not it! I.... You don't see it do you? I guess you wouldn't... Kat... Fin has dropped his glamour. Everyone can see his wings." She whispers. Oh damn. No wonder everyone is staring so much. I didn't notice because I looked through his glamour earlier, but if Fin has dropped his glamour then he really isn't in control of himself. This is much worse than I thought. I look around to see if I can manage any kind of damage control but I can see at least three people recording on their phones. It's way too late. There is no way this won't end up online. I guess Fin is about to be pretty famous. Ugh, the mayor is going to know I've been lying to him. Maybe I can convince him that Fin just arrived or something?

Ashton and Fin fight for a few minutes longer. Ashton is definitely holding back, in fact I'm pretty sure he's doing his best not to do anything that would show that he's fae too. No need to make this any worse than it already is. I'm searching the crowd for the fae woman, she has to be here somewhere. But it's just impossible. There are at least fifteen other women here and I can barely get a good look at anyone in all the excitement. At least it doesn't look like anyone is leaving. Finally, Ashton manages to get a proper hold of Fin who quickly drops to his knees and passes out as Ashton drains his magic. Ashton hasn't overextended himself the way he did last time, but I can tell that he's still exhausted. He stumbles away and leans against the bar. Lucy rushes forward and kneels next to Fin, she rolls him over slightly so that he isn't crushing his own wings and lifts his head up onto her lap. He groans slightly in his sleep but doesn't wake. "He is fine. He will sleep for a while." Ashton reassures her. I move towards him.

"We should get Fin home-" I start, but I'm cut off by a group of people shoving past me and rushing towards Ashton.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay? I can't believe that guy is fae! That must have been so scary." One woman is gushing. I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that Ashton isn't human. I still don't know what the fae woman is trying to do. Manipulating Fin was only barely a better plan than controlling Jeremy. The fae woman would have some idea of what Fin and Ashton's abilities are and it should be pretty obvious who would win in a fight. If she wanted to control someone, it would make more sense to aim for Ashton, right? Except we already know she has to touch someone to control them, or at least we think she does. Ashton was busy checking Jeremy over when this happened. He didn't get anywhere near the crowd, except for when he was with me. It would have been hard for the fae woman to touch him. But Fin was on crowd control. Still, if I were her, I would be picking Ashton as my next target. I turn to the group that have surrounded Ashton and I push my way through. At least two of the women have physical contact with him and he is trying to extricate himself but he is clearly exhausted, plus he's just socially awkward enough to struggle with a group like this. I grab Ashton's hand to get his attention, maybe this is time to bring out the fake girlfriend act again to make the crowd back off.

"Ashton." I try to get his attention, but surprisingly he doesn't even glance at me. He seems almost dazed. Maybe he's more tired than I thought, or maybe... I narrow my eyes at the women who are touching him. One of them looks vaguely like the video footage I saw. But I can't be sure. She has her hand placed on Ashton's chest, her nails are long, but weirdly not painted. Who grows their nails that long but doesn't paint them? And that does it, I see through her glamour. Those aren't nails, they're claws. The men we interviewed were right about one thing though, she IS beautiful. She also needs to get her hands off Ashton. Since he clearly isn't capable of fighting back, and Fin clearly isn't any help either. I guess it's up to me.