PART THREE - UNDER A STARRY SKY

Chapter Twenty-Five - The Pride...

Ten years later

“Ari, are you sure we should be here? You know what this place is...don’t you?”

A small, brown haired girl moved nervously on her feet, holding a small dagger in her hand that she seemed entirely unfit to weild. Her eyes were trained on her companion.

The woman next to her was almost her complete opposite. Fiery bright red hair burned around her head, only interrupted by two curling horns on the sides of her head. Unlike her companion, the big sword on her back suited her perfectly, completing the savage aura she carried around her.

Both of them looked to be in their mid to late twenties, but physical age meant little in the Plane of Gods.

“What? Why?” Arette blinked and stopped looking into the distance, instead focusing her eyes on Liz, whose expression was a mixture between annoyance and fear.

“You don’t remember? Again?” she asked in exasperation, clearly having said this way too often.

Arette felt a little bad, since she did tend to forget things that didn’t seem so important to her and especially as Liz had the uncanny ability to remember every single thing.

Rubbing her neck with an awkward smile, she thought out loud.

“Umm, was this the place where we got kicked out of a bar after I started a fight?” she asked with a giggle but Liz wasn’t amused.

“No! That was back in the forty-seventh province. And you didn’t ‘start a fight’ you threw yourself into a brawl and burned down half of the village,” Liz admonished darkly.

Arette ‘hmmd’ a bit more as she looked around trying to remember where she had seen this scenery before. Lots of mountains and hills, a few forests here and there...basically the same as everywhere in these areas. It didn’t exactly ring a bell.

“Was this where we tried to catch some criminal and instead walked on that guy cheating on his wife?” she tried again. That had indeed been awkward, especially since the wife had been alerted by the ruckus they’d made and they had to bear the brunt of her wrath - whyever, Arette would’ve unleashed fury unto the husband first. But then again, she didn’t know too much about love.

“No!” Liz half yelled, throwing her hands in the air as if surrendering, “This was where you decided to get wasted and broke into the headquarters of the Lavender Clan and burned the lyrics of some song into its walls before scattering half of their secret documents all over the city. The entire territory in front of us is controlled by the Lavender - and I’m pretty sure they still have orders to attack us on sight.”

Liz’s voice was a half growl, clearly annoyed by Arette’s countless antics.

“Oh,” Arette deadpanned.

Liz was kind of right to be angry - she had gotten them hated by a lot of people over the years. But there were other territories and clans who worshipped them for helping them - so that was that?

Maybe she did go overboard at times...that was mostly why she liked travelling with Liz. Liz prevented her from going completely out of control.

Anyways, nothing big had ever gone wrong. They were still alive and kicking, after ten years of living like this. So Arette shrugged.

“Nah, I don’t think that they’ll do anything. That was ages ago anyways.”

“Ari, it wasn’t ages, it was three months!”

“Pah, they can’t do anything to us anyways. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you, Lizzy,” she grinned and gave a thumbs up, not really worried.

If they did try to do something, she was confident in her capabilities to defend against them.

Ten years of living as a bounty hunter had honed her capabilities. While her fire control had remained at roughly the same level - frankly, she saw no way to improve something she could already do as easily as breathing - her sword arts had grown substantially fiercer.

There was hardly anyone below the level of lesser gods that could beat her as it was - so her confidence wasn’t unfounded.

Liz knew that too and, with another sceptical look, acquiesced to her persuasion.

“So who are we searching for?” her best friend asked with a sigh. Arette’s grin grew brighter.

“Thief, stole over a million gold coins from the Brackenbone Clan. The clan’s members already found his hideout and retrieved the money, but he managed to flee. They want revenge of course - so we should probably bring him in alive.”

“Probably?” Liz gaped, giving her an incredulous stare, “Of course we’ll get him alive. We won’t kill him!”

Arette rolled her eyes but gave a nod. While Liz was quite pacifist - she had even refused Arette’s offer to go hunt for beasts for her to eat when they were camping out in the woods - Arette had little such qualms about killing others.

It was the law of the jungle in the Plane of Gods - the stronger survived, the weaker perished. While Arette refused to kill innocent people and become an assassin that killed without regard, she did kill those who did something wrong without mercy.

Her ability to see their flames made it easy to convict them and that was quite enough for her. It wasn’t for Liz though and this was the part where Arette gave in.

“Fine, let’s go,” she said and entered the territory of a Clan that wanted her dead without hesitation.

Liz sighed and followed after her, praying that this wasn’t the day her best friend got them both killed.

“So this is who they sent after me? Two girls?”

The man in front of them scoffed, but the sweat pearling on his forehead revealed his fear.

They had found his traces quite soon in the form of an abandoned, but still warm fireplace, and for Arette, who had never forgotten her early beginnings in the woods, following his trail had been easy.

They hadn’t met anyone else on their chase, thankfully enough, and now they had their bounty cornered against a stone wall with no chance of escape in either direction - at least none that Arette couldn’t cut off.

At his taunting, Arette grinned.

“You can underestimate us all you want, but believe me, you can’t fight against us and win. Or escape. The only difference is the degree of your wounds in the end. So, how about surrendering?”

She raised an eyebrow, hoping inwardly he would say no. They almost always said no and she liked it - she did this job for the fighting anyways.

The more powerful her opponents were the better.

She looked at the man’s flame. Filled with greed and guilt, but his strength was quite alright. A Sovereign - of what, she couldn’t say.

If it had been another bounty hunter instead of her who found him today, he might’ve gotten away.

The man rolled his eyes at her question, looking at her as if she might be stupid.

“Surrender so you can drag me back to people who want to kill me? I’m not that much of an imbecile,” he spat, eyes gleaming with a final effort to fight for his life.

“Fine with me,” Arette shrugged and drew the greatsword she kept strapped to her back. Over the time, she had changed swords many times and found herself most at ease with this one, it had already accompanied her for over three years now.

The man in front of her stood bare handed as she charged.

As always, adrenaline rushed through her and she grinned as the rush filled her veins. This what what she lived for - for this moment of breath filling her lungs to the fullest.

The thief took his stance, but right before she reached him, she darted towards the left and swung her sword towards his knee.

He dodged by swerving away from her, a small twitch revealing daggers in his hands. He was fast - maybe as fast as her. But speed wasn’t her strongest suit.

Turning her blade around she swung it towards his neck, confident he would be able to block. Her feet shifted, stepping further apart to put strength behind her arms.

Aching anticipation ran through her muscles as she tensed and her sword hit the daggers her opponent had crossed hurriedly to block her stride.

They were good daggers - not sentient ones, but strong enough to hold her for a second. She used that to twirl around and deliver a kick to his ribs that made a smaller crunching sound and hurled him backwards.

He stumbled to catch his footing and she darted after him and knocked his daggers out of his hand with a punch on his arms. She could’ve driven the sword through his chest at that and it sang in her hands, ready for blood, but she wasn’t, not yet. Killing wasn’t what she wanted.

She wanted more of the thrill. She wanted his daggers at her throat, only a hair’s width away from cutting her veins and ending her life, and the thrill of having escaped death would run through her and make her feel alive - that was the feeling she longed for.

And so she grinned down on the man she was hunting and waited until he grabbed onto the blades again and fought up, even with pain tearing his face apart.

“Ari…” Liz’ voice reached her from far away, cautious, afraid.

What was she afraid of? Arette clearly had the upper hand, there was no need for Liz to be scared.

“Stand back, Lizzy. I’ve got this,” she grinned and hardened her stance.

Liz didn’t answer and she quickly blocked out the noises she didn’t need to hear in favor of zoning in on the thief in front of her.

He glared at her, breath wheezing, but surprised her yet again when he attacked her with surprising speed. For a moment, she was stunned and couldn’t react quick enough.

His blade skimmed her arm as she threw herself to the ground and flicked her feet to crash into his shin, making both of them tumble to the floor.

The pain didn’t register for a while, but with it came the dull swelling of having hit the floor with her shoulder and dirt in her wound. It didn’t faze her too much as she jumped up again.

The thief wasn’t finished yet either. He coughed up a clot of blood and ran at her again, but this time, she was ready.

She threw her sword aside, finding her long weapon quite disadvantageous in a close range fight, and rushed up, not caring about the flesh the daggers cut when she parried his kicks and punches.

Her feet hit his arms, his fist her hand and her blood boiled.

All the while, Arette grinned.

This was what she was living for. Fighting, using her body to its limits, feeling excitement rushing through her veins. She didn’t even feel the wounds.

At least not until an excruciating pain knocked all breath out of her.

Force slammed into her back and she staggered forwards, running straight into her opponent’s dagger that nudged itself nearly into her side.

A cry escaped her as her left shoulder flamed up and she fell back, even though the thief she was fighting until now looked just as baffled as she was. She raised her right hand to her throbbing back, finding and arrow lodged under her shoulder blade, stuck deep inside her flesh.

A hiss escaped her as she turned around, eyes scanning the trees for the shooter.

She didn’t have to search for long.

One after another, Immortals stepped out of the treeline, until ten men and women half surrounded her. A quick scan of their flames revealed a rather grim outlook - four Ascendants, one near her own strength, three Sovereigns, three Emperors, all hostile. Against her.

It wasn’t hard to guess why either - the Lavender sigil on their shoulders made their affiliation clear.

Arette gritted her teeth, feeling warm blood run down her side and back. The thief behind her left her mind in favor of focussing on these new opponents.

“Arette, bounty hunter, no known affiliation to any clan. Our clan leader has searched you for long,” one of the Immortals, a woman with green tinged skin and horns not unlike Arette’s stepped forwards - the one of the group whose strength could rival hers.

“Look, I’m sorry about what happened before. Can’t we just leave it at that and each go about our own business?” she pushed the pain down and spoke with a light grin, knowing it wouldn’t be that easy. The woman laughed into her face.

“Our clan leader wants your head - with or without your body attached. If you decide against cooperating, I don’t mind delivering them separately,” she flashed her teeth, a row of sharp canines that made her look more feline than humanoid.

Arette stared at her and despite everything, even with her wounds and the pain and the blood she was losing at an alarming rate, excitement spread through her belly. This was a challenge - maybe the challenge she’d been seeking for a long time.

Stepping sideways, she picked up her sword from where she threw it, tightening her grip on the familiar handle.

“Liz, step back. I’ll handle this,” she called to her friend, who was standing uncertainly around the edge of the clearing.

“Ari…”

“Trust me.”