Aery felt a wash of respect, but stifled it. How was that different than her own training by the CIA and FBI and DHS?
She bit her lip, a sly smile playing across her face. "That's quite a lot of expertise. How did one as young as yourself acquire so much knowledge?"
The idiot guard came up closer, his hands up like he was going to strangle her. She let him get his fingers within two inches of her throat, then lightning-fast she ducked, and kicked out behind her, hitting him squarely in a not-so-nice place. Pivoting, she guided the man as he collapsed, pushing him into the table, putting all her weight on his arms so that he had to remain there or break a joint.
She looked up at the boy, her ice-blue eyes cold. "Your man wanted to kill me. Tell me why and give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill him for this grievous assault against my person."
Finally some of her boys came up, flanking her. All five of them, shockingly. Peter with his pistol half-drawn, Adam and Alex casually, and Jon and Kyle like they had no idea what was going on.
"Everything alright?" Peter asked warily, eyeing the man on the table.
Without taking her eyes off the boy, without shifting her weight off of the guard's arms. "Everything's fine. I was having a debate with this young gentleman and one of his... personnel... decided that I had spent more than my allotted time at this table. As you can see, my side of the debate was favored." She had been about to say "the gods favored my side of the debate." But she figured it would be a mistake to let this morally-ambiguous boy onto her religious beliefs.