Hasegawa Chisame, Kasuga Misora, Hakase Satomi, Kakizaki Misa, Kagurazaka Asuna, Shiina Sakurako, Suzushiro Haruka, Saotome Haruna, Yukihiro Ayaka, Akashi Yuuna, Hasegawa Sora, Konoe Konoka, Sakurazaki Setsuna and Alice Liddell all loved Negi Springfield, to some level or another. After all, you didn't agree to stand for a boy your junior in an open ended likely dangerous quest that possibly could last for decades without holding some degree or another of affection for said boy. Sure, Asuna's affection was probably (in this continuity, this time) sisterly at best, and the other girls, especially Ayaka, did their darn best to believe her whenever she would emphatically reassert that fact, but still.

It goes without saying most of the girls, and Negi himself, weren't what you could say too keen on the idea, often brought along by Chamo the ermine familiar, of adding more Ministra Magi to Negi's ever growing lineup of Alliance partners. It would have been more than what any of them (but Chamo) would have felt comfortable at all handling. The girls didn't want any more competition (although Haruna was of the opinion 'The more the merrier') and Negi didn't want to risk any more people and handling even more cumbersome team logistics (which partially meant the logistics of breaking as few hearts as possible once he embarked into his successful solo heroic career like his father).

However, there are times when such things are imposed upon you by forces beyond your control. Things like the dreaded… plot.

Akamatsu Ken and Kodansha created Mahou Sensei Negima.

I make no money from writing this fanfic.

Twenty Five Other Times Negi Made a Pactio.

Adult Combat Counseling Room.

Under the false, warm sun of Evangeline Mc Dowell's resort, three figures stood by the large main pool, two of them side by side and facing the smallest of the trio. While everybody else chattered and discussed at enough of a distance, the mistress of the house had called her disciple and his main partner aside, and now she had stopped right where she wanted, making them stop as well.

"Boya," Evangeline smirked, holding a ticket before him and a perplexed Chisame, "would you happen to remember this?"

"Ah, ah, yeah…" the boy in nothing but swimming trunks gasped. "That… that is our—"

The purple one-piece clad Chisame squinted while adjusting her glasses (despite the fact she didn't need them to read, but she had gotten the habit regardless) and made out the fine, tiny print on the ticket. "Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell and Negi Springfield?" she read aloud. "Okay, what the hell have you two been doing this time?" she demanded to know.

Eva chuckled darkly while Negi closed his eyes in shame. "Oh? Hadn't your trusted Magister told you yet, Hasegawa Chisame? For shame, Boya! Well, if you need being told, it's a demon ticket that forcibly carries out a promise. If I use this, Boya will have to date me in the last day of the Festival. For as long as I want!"

".. oh," Chisame said. "You know, now you've said it… I can't really get angry after all. Weird! I suppose it's because that's what I've grown to expect from you…"

Evangeline snarled viciously. "Yes, I'm a filthy, degenerate person, I don't need being reminded, but thanks anyway and I mean it! Now, Boya, do you know what am I going to do with this?"

As the boy swallowed hard and sweated, trying to articulate a few words, Eva flashed a toothy grin and ripped the ticket to shreds between her fingers. "Master!" Negi finally said.

"Okay, now what was that about?" Chisame asked.

"Nothing," Evangeline replied. "It's just that, from the looks of it, Boya will be busy all through the final day too, and going in a date with someone whose mind will be elsewhere the whole time is such a drag. I deserve far better than that, don't you agree? Of course you do! So, I'll be a fair player and let Boya have his fun with Lingshen instead… for the time being. Later, I'll show him what a real woman is able of."

Chisame growled out a corner of her mouth. "In this I agree with Kakizaki, why can't you ever talk about the kid without turning your words into dirty innuendo?"

Negi, on the other hand, was just too relieved to care or think too hard about it. "Thank you very much, Master!" he quickly bowed to the blonde. "I'll make sure to honor that upcoming battle as you deserve, too!"

"Battle? Clueless wimp, who was saying anything about—Ohh, forget it!" Eva huffed. "Just go rest already, will you? You'll need it for taking on Lingshen… and then me… one after another. And yes, Hasegawa, *now* I am talking about a fight."

"Good to hear," Chisame dryly said.

"Not that I care about any objections you might have otherwise," Evangeline tried to make clear. She turned around with a casual swag of her hips and began walking away. "And if either of you or your friends wishes for a nocturnal consultation, remember I'm always open…" she cackled throatily.

As the petite witch in the tight, white one piece swimsuit walked with her back to them, Negi stared silently after her, and for some reason his eyes became focused on her small, tight derriere. Chisame would have berated him over that fact right then and there if not because she only realized she was staring at it as well when, moments later, Matoi's loud jealous JIIIIIIIIIIII sounded right behind her.

Darn bad companies. They were getting to her as well?!

"I can't sleep," Negi said in the dead quiet of that night, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

Chamo, who had been lying on the pillow next to Negi's head, snapped back to awareness, smacking his furry lips together. "Ah? Uh? Ah, what? Oh, yeah, neither can I," he said with a small yawn. "Still thinking about having to fight Chao, huh? Don't trouble yourself; she's been asking for it, and you're strong enough to take on her…" he yawned, curling up into a small ball.

Negi sat up on the mattress. "No. I don't want to do it regardless. She's my student, and I'm sure her reasons are good! But I still have to do it, don't I?" He stood up in his pajamas. "I gotta go talk this with a wiser older person…"

"I'm older and wiser!" an offended Chamo perked up while Negi dragged his feet for his bedroom's door, not really listening to the familiar. Chamo huffed indignantly, then hopped off the bed after him. "What happened to the days when you'd settle your sleep problems by just sneaking into a girl's bed? I miss those days a lot!"

"Those weren't days, they were nights…" Negi moaned while Chamo crawled up to his right shoulder, and he walked out into the hall. "Master said she'd be available for consultations tonight. So I'm sure I won't be a bother for once…"

"If you say so," Chamo grumbled while Negi wandered across the maze of halls of the building. The animal looked in all directions. "Are you sure you know where you're going?"

"No," Negi admitted. "But I'm bound to find her eventually. Or she'll find me. I can't sleep anyway."

Chamo sighed. "You will work yourself into an early grave. All training and no rest mine any body down, you know? If you just listened to me at least once…!"

Then, after doubling a corner, they ran into one of Evangeline's doll maids, who stood guard with her hands crossed before her lap. "Negi Springfield-sama," the black haired doll bowed to him, her voice as flat and hollow as ever. "How may I be of help for you?"

"Um, oh, good evening!" Negi stiffened in place. "Sorry to disturb you so late in the night…!"

"I do not sleep. Your apologies, while duly noted and thanked, are not necessary, Negi-sama," the doll noted. "I repeat, how may I satisfy any needs you might present at the time?"

Negi gulped and decided being honest. "I'd like talking to Master Evangeline, please. She said she'd be open tonight to answer any questions I had to ask her…"

She nodded. "I had been notified of that. Very well. This way, please," she softly said, turning around and taking a side hall. While Chamo gasped nervously, Negi followed her without doubting for a moment.

"What… What is this place?" the young man stopped as she brought them into a huge and nearly perfect copy of the Mahora Female Baths, down to the same architectonic style and coloring. These baths, however, were mostly blanketed by a soft but thick layer of warm vapor, as if the temperature of the waters was considerably higher than that usually had in Mahora Junior High baths. "Is, is Master here? Because then, I should wait outside while she-!"

"Hmmm?" a familiar voice said from the steam, right from where a small thin shape could be vaguely glimpsed taking two hands to its head, and Chamo's tail went as rigid as his- ears. "Boya? Is that you?"

"Eh… Y-Yes, it's me, Master!" Negi said with a shaking voice. "I'm sorry, I had no idea you were here, please don't take it against me!" he begged, blocking his eyes with an arm and trying to walk backwards. He was so nervous he only managed to stumble and fall on his butt on the floor. "Ouch!"

"Iiiiihhhhh!" Chamo said, and instinctively, Negi looked up, to see a very naked and wet Evangeline standing over him, shamelessly, hands on her hips, bare body in full display to them. The boy went darkly red and began gasping in short, quick and continued intervals. He trembled in place.

"I didn't think you'd really look for my guidance, Boya," Evangeline purred. "I was sure your hubris would be as great as that of your father. But, all the better! It's been a long while since the last time I bathed with another. Come join me, and we will discuss in the old kinship style that never should have gone out of vogue."

"What, what what are you saying, Master?!" Negi squealed. "D-Don't joke with me like that, I'm, uh, your student, and you're my student, so that'd be doubly improper, and anyway you don't want me to—"

Eva groaned her annoyance and snapped her fingers. "Are you really going to back away after walking into the lair of vice? Girls, strip him down and get in with me."

"Yes, Master," the doll said, while another, nearly identical maid stepped out from behind a pillar. As Evangeline calmly walked back into the water giving Negi a close full look of her naked buttocks, the two dolls grabbed the boy and began plucking his clothes off. Chamo sweatdropped.

"AAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!" Negi cried. "No, I don't want to! I hate baths! And I hate indecency! And I-!"

One moment later, he, too, was completely naked and one of the maids single-handedly tossed him into the bath as if he were as light as a ball of paper. He fell in with a large splash close to the amused Evangeline, and resurfaced coughing and gasping for air.

"Now, what's the consultation about, in the middle of the night of all times?" Evangeline purred as she rose into her voluptuous adult form before them, large round breasts jutting out with a slight bounce while coming into being from a formerly flat chest. Negi spat a long stream of bath water and Chamo plummeted on his back, sinking like a rock. "Do you want to finally taste the pleasures of the flesh before Lingshen or I dispose of you? Fu fu fu! I guess you have no choice but growing fast when you—"

"Master!" Negi cried, waving his arms and splashing in all directions. "Don't make fun of my predicament!"

"Until you can free me from your father's spell, fun is all you can supply me with," Eva said, reaching over to caress one of his cheeks with her long sharp nails. "And I'm well entitled to it, as I give you and your followers training, meals and a place to stay even when you are hounded…"

"Wh-What about the blood, isn't that… huhhhh…" Negi went crosseyed while the sultry woman began kissing the underside of his neck, placing small pecks all over it, teasing the arteries and vein under the skin.

"Your blood? How kind of you to offer it, but I think I want something else today…" Eva said, one of her hands traveling down Negi's chest, then further down his stomach. She enjoyed the feel of the hardening muscle, the result of his labors, and wondered if it also would be hard down past the waist. It actually was, which made Negi shudder and tense while wondering what was happening to his body. Was it some sort of magic affecting him? Was Master casting some unchanted spell on him while touching him? The hardness grew even worse when her hand stopped right above the line of his waist, and then she stopped.

Negi breathed somewhat easier. "Master," he wheezed. "I think—"

Evangeline's mind had been warring with itself furiously over the last few moments, pondering if to cross the moral event horizon currently tempting her or not and take a good long yang of the thing right under her fingertips. Eventually, she quickly settled for a compromise and, instead of doing it or retreating, she went for something that would not make her lose evil face *or* be too low even for her. After all, several girls who prided themselves on being 'better' than her already had done it. Even if never naked. But, again, she was evil!

Eva leaned ahead and planted her lips on Negi's, making his eyes bug out as the wet mouth on his firmly, roughly clamped itself as if trying to drain the life itself out of him. He felt his eyes then rolling back into their sockets, and the hardening got even worse. Evangeline pressed herself against him during their osculation, and she made a short sound of evil glee as she felt the small hardness poking against her stomach.

Then, much to her confusion, never mind Negi's, the water under and around them began glowing.

Chamo broke back to the surface, gulping for air and victoriously holding a wet chalkstick up. "Pa, Pa, Pactio!" he said.

"SAY WHAT?!" Evangeline cried, enraged, pulling back from the kiss and releasing the choking, gasping Negi. Then the water exploded in all directions, and a pillar of light erupted from the depths, a shiny card floating in the middle of it. Eva stared in paling disbelief at the float, that hovered gracefully above them for the next several moments, and even before it fell, she took a squeezing hold of Chamo, smashing him between her fingers. "YOU NO-GOOD CREEP!"

"SO-WORTH-IT-ANIMAL-ABUSE!" Chamo chuckled with his last breaths before Eva just tossed him aside in disgust. He hit the bath's edge, gurgled, then fell back into the water. Several bubbles rose to the surface where he had fallen, after that.

Negi gagged and stuttered, regaining his bearings and taking a hand to his mouth. He blushed deeply and he felt his knees shaking under the water. "Master, why, why, I never imagined, you'd feel this way about me, s-sorry, but…!"

"Shut up!" she snapped at him, regaining her child form with a loud 'POP!' sound. "Don't get the wrong idea, Boya! It's not like I could love anyone as pathetic as you or anything! This was your stupid ermine's fault…" she mumbled, then picked the card up from the water where it already had fallen into. "But since it already happened, now let's see what do you get as my Min—"

Then she fell silent, her jaw loosening, her eyes growing wide.

"Master?" Negi asked. "W-What happened?" He was completely sure he would be blamed about this, whatever it was.

Wordlessly, the vampire witch shoved the card in front of his face, literally smashing his nose in. It hurt. Bad.

When Negi finished rubbing the blood off his nose, he blinked and gave the card a good look. It had a nice picture of Evangeline, in her child form, smirking and wearing the black negligee with the thong panties and the high collar ragged cape. Her feet bare, and a knife-wielding Chachazero at her side, held by a set of strings hanging from the fingers of one of Eva's hands.

Under the image, it read:

Athanasia Ecaterina Macdovell Evangelina

Magistra Puparum

"Wow," Negi breathed out. "This is a really cool looking card, Master. A bit risky looking, though, but—"

"I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE MAGISTER!" Evangeline roared as she punched Negi across the room.

"Why are we having dinner long after sleeptime?" Negi asked as he sat down at the table the two doll maids had just served.

"Because I want to, and because I sometimes cool down if I eat something after being insulted or crossed," the again-adult looking, slinky black night dress with high heel shoes-wearing Evangeline mumbled while sitting opposite him. "Unless you'd want to placate my appetite with your blood instead?"

"There's never a bad time for a nice dinner under the moonlight," Negi stiffly chuckled, fixing his tie back, while the false moon and stars threw some romantic, moody lighting over the gala pavilion the two of them and Chamo were at now. The dolls had vanished away right after setting the table, and for a moment Negi had to wonder if Eva had programmed ninjutsu training into them. But now it wasn't the time to think about that, right? "Are you still angry?" he carefully asked.

Eva scoffed. "Sort of. Why wouldn't I? This has been a terrible slight to my power, but I suppose I should blame the spirits of magic, not you. Maybe the alliance system works differently into subdimensional space. I don't know, I never tried to make a Pactio here."

Negi gulped. "I seem to remember Itoshiki-sensei and Kaga-san had their Pactio kiss in this resort, and it worked fine for them…"

"They're only humans! I'm special!" Evangeline growled. "Well? What was worrying you, then?"

Negi blinked. "Shouldn't we keep on thinking about our—"

"No, I don't want to think about that!" Eva said. "Let's go back to what brought you to me in the first place! Let me guess; after fighting that fake Nagi, you're in doubt about facing an alleged relative again, aren't you? You men are so predictable."

"I hadn't thought about it that way," Negi said, "but there's a lot of truth to your words. Yes, facing Chao-san fills me with a lot of doubt. For starters, I don't even know if I'm doing the right thing by fighting her."

"That's her own fault. She should have told you before challenging you," Eva told him as she poured herself a glass of wine.

"She told me she'd only tell me if I joined her cause," Negi sheepishly observed.

Eva waved a hand. "That's just as stupid. If someone's that manipulative, then they just can't be any good. I mean, just look at me! Of course, Linghsen cannot hope to be as perversely awesome as I, so she's just a second rate wannabe at villainy. Smash her, she's earned that."

"Chachamaru would be sad," Negi offered.

"Chachamaru is always sad, unless she's looking after some cats. I'll just buy her more cats," Evangeline shrugged while primly cutting her steak.

"What if she has good motives to keep me in the dark?"

"Then she'd better tell you about them after you rub her face in the dirt."

"Aren't you concerned about the reasons and consequences of something as dire as revealing magic to the world?"

"Mundus Magicus has known about it for centuries, and they get by just fine, don't they?" Eva shrugged indolently. "Back when I was young, most people in this world knew, as well. What you call the Age of Illumination did indeed throw a lot of light upon this planet, but also threw blankets over its most shadowy corners and chose to ignore them. Act as if they never existed. Either way, it doesn't matter to me."

"I'm thinking," Chamo said, from his place next to Negi's chair, "if the word gets out you are an immortal vampire locked up at this academy, you might become a touristic attraction for many, Evangeline-sama…"

"And that's why you shouldn't ever think!" the blonde hissed. "Either way, Boya, the answer to all your concerns demands for you to defeat Lingshen and demand straight answers from her. I don't know why you are so torn about it."

"I think you are underselling the likely consequences of Chao-san's victory," Negi gulped. "It would change the world as a whole, and perhaps have long term ramifications on Mundus Magicus as well…"

"No doubt," she conceded, "but change has to eventually come one way or another. Right now, isolationist tendencies are popping up all across that world, demanding for them to cut all ties with Earth. But as the immigration program Cocone-san is part of proves, they just can't allow themselves that, no matter what the extremists delude themselves into believing. Of course, Linghsen's triumph would make that more complicated; tensions between commoners and mages would reach all new levels. How would you feel if you learned there's been a secret society lurking inside of the magical community over centuries, and you knew next to nothing about their true goals and nature? That's what we are to normal humans, Boya. And there are lots of powerful people in both sides who would profit from fanning the fires of paranoia."

Negi swallowed his current, tender mouthful as if it was made of wood. "And, and you're okay with that?!"

"Do you have any idea how many worldwide disasters and crises one sees when one gets as old as I?" Eva passively said. "Changes won't happen without some measure of public distress or another. That's the nature of the world… either of them."

"But, Chao-san and I could be in a position where we can change that for everyone's best! If only I knew what I have to do!" Negi almost stood up.

"What makes you so sure Lingshen herself knows what she's doing?" Evangeline asked while sipping more wine. "It's true she is intelligent, but intelligence in the fields of science and finances doesn't have to always equal common sense or long term insight. Hakase and Yukihiro are living proof of that."

Negi now slumped down on his seat instead. "This is too much for me," he lamented. "I shouldn't have been trusted with a decision as weighty as this one."

"Maybe," Chamo piped in, "that's why Chao-chan didn't want to tell you so much. Maybe you'd be crushed even harder now."

"Oh-ho ho!" Eva chuckled. "Cutting the girl some slack at last?"

Negi mused aloud, "She asked me what I would do if I had the chance to change the past, to save my village, my father. If I could, I'd do it in a heartbeat! What if she's moved by the same kind of reasons? How could I ruin her chance for happiness then?"

"Hu… I see," Eva smirked while wiping her mouth with a handkerchief, delicately. "Well, I will admit I have no easy answers for that, Boya. Very rarely you find easy answers for complicated questions. Have you finished by now?"

Negi looked at his half-empty plate, then set it aside. "Yes," he said.

"Good," Evangeline said while standing up. "Then follow me outside. I'm going to teach you something."

On the beach, Negi took his shirt and shoes off as Evangeline shook her shoes off and then pulled the dress off her body, leaving herself in her lacy black underwear. Chamo, sitting on the sand at a prudent distance, drew a deep impressed breath in. Negi gulped awkwardly, but didn't set his eyes apart from the beauty. She had been stressing the importance of not letting the gentleman in him overrule the warrior a lot, lately.

"Prepare yourself," Evangeline told him.

"What does fighting have to do with the ethical implications of what we were discussing?" Negi asked.

"Just prepare yourself," she ordered.

And she jumped at him, kicking him across the face.

Negi rolled around with the hit, backflipping on his hands and feet along the coastline, while she laughed at him. "What's wrong, Boya?! Did you really rank second in the Tournament, or was that 'CGI'?" she taunted, coming closer at blitzing speed. She threw a punch at him, and while he blocked, she left him with severe bruises on his blocking wrists, pushing him back.

"Master, this is pointless!" he tried a leg sweep at her feet, only for her to easily jump over it, chanting her power activation under her breath. "It doesn't answer my question at all!"

"Mwa ha ha ha!" she laughed while tossing several ice arrows at him. "What did I tell you about easy answers? You're such a bookworm you believe every question can be answered by a textbook! It doesn't work that way, lad!"

"I'm not treating you like a textbook!" he yelled as he shot several lightning arrows, neutralizing Evangeline's. "All I ask for is some basic moral guidance! Which all masters should be able to provide!"

"True!" Eva laughed, as they moved back and forth across the beach, spellcasting at each other and blowing sand and water in all directions. "Even if you only should expect evil morals from an evil master! Is that what you're afraid of, Boya? That, through me, you've become the evil one in your conflict with Chao?!"

"What?" he blinked, right before being grabbed by the throat and thrown through a palm tree.

Evangeline floated over his stunned form. "You are still obsessed with your 'purity' and 'goodness', thinking them to be your adored father's ideals! Yet you can't deny being attracted to my darkness! As long as that schism exists in your heart, you won't be able to fight correctly as good or evil!"

He grunted, thrust himself up by pushing his hands down on the ground, and kicked Eva's jaw with both feet. She cackled as she flew back. "Look at yourself! You don't even know what true evil is yet! You haven't tasted the miseries of the world, and you are afraid of them! Afraid of hurting others! But you know what, Boya?" she smiled cruelly at him as she stopped in midair, looking down at him. "Often, 'good' people will hurt others as much if not more as the 'evil' ones do."

"That can't be right!" he rushed at her, readying a fist.

"It's true!" she yelled, grabbing him by a wrist and slamming him down. "Including your father! Who did hurt me! And your mother! And so many others! And YOU! Even if his intentions were 'good', as you put it!"

"You're just letting your hatred talk for you!" he protested, punching her in the face.

"And you're letting your fear talk in your stead!" she said, gesturing around and wrapping his body with invisible strings, immobilizing him just like she had done to Ranma during their tournament battle. "Fear of hurting your mismatched party! In the end, you just want to do everything yourself, so they don't get hurt! But look at what you can achieve on your own!" she growled, stomping down on his chest.

He squirmed in pain. "It's my duty as a teacher, a mage, a warrior, a gentleman! Isn't that obvious?!"

"Hu… No, you're wrong. In the end, you're just making excuses for yourself." She took a hand to his throat and squeezed, while Chamo gasped and fainted. "You can't be their teacher forever, just like I can't be yours. Mages aren't supposed to babysit mankind, just to walk along them. Warriors have to learn how to accept collateral damage. And gentlemen… Boya, I hate to break it to you, but gentlemen don't exist. Your father was no gentleman, Takamichi and Eishun aren't gentlemen, and you will never be one."

She released his neck while Negi panted violently. More softly, she added, "No matter how much Hasegawa and the others insist on it, you just won't accept it, and how can you call yourself a teacher when you won't learn your own lessons? You need to start thinking of them… of us, now you've done this…" she placed the new card before his face, "as your comrades. They have trusted you to lead them, and I have trusted you enough as to teach you, as to place my hopes of release on you. Don't you think it's time you start answering to that trust with your own?"

"Master," Negi coughed.

"Don't get me wrong," she told him. "I won't accept you as my Magister Magi… as laughable as that idea is… until you have proved yourself. As a man who is aware of his own limits, not a child playing to be a great lone hero, like your father was. And start accepting one of those limits is, you can't keep everyone safe forever. No one can remain safe forever, Boya. Not even those who live in blissful ignorance, much less those who have stepped into the world of magic. Learning that is part and parcel of becoming a man."

He felt his eyes watering as he looked up at her. "But… that is my dream, Master…"

"Ah. That's unfortunate," she said. "Or not. Dreams are supposed to be unobtainable, after all. Otherwise, you might reach them, and what would happen then? No," she said, waving a hand and releasing him, "The dreams of mankind are supposed to be ideals to be chased eternally, like all things based on perfection are."

"Become someone who can advance even while covered on mud, Boya," Evangeline told him. "That's what I want from an apprentice of mine. And from a man I can call my own."

"Bweh?" the boy said.

She caressed his cheeks with both hands. "I don't know what our Pactio is supposed to do. You certainly can't supply me with any power I don't have already. But maybe, if you ever grow powerful enough as to reach or surpass me… yes, I know it is ridiculous and impossible, but again, an ideal… maybe then, you could actually qualify as my Magister. In the meanwhile, I will be keeping this," and she stuck her card down her cleavage. "As a memento of your devotion to me. My dark disciple."

She turned around and began walking away, slow and sensually. He only could stare, entranced, after her.

"Master," he finally said, weakly, "thank you very much."

She chuckled without looking back. "You're always welcome."

And he could swear he had heard, from the first time ever, actual warmth and fondness directed from her to him.

Negi Springfield fell back on the sand and wondered why his heart kept on beating that fast.

The stress and thrill of the fight, no doubt. Yes. That had to be it.

Pactio Partner Number Fifteen: Evangeline A.K. Mc Dowell.