“Are those claws?” Agnes suddenly heard a loud shriek. She turned to face a little blood elf boy who had a very funny looking face at the moment, “Are those elf ears?”

“Yes. Yes they are” Agnes deadpanned.

“Wow! You’re a semi!” he exclaimed.

“Tien, calling someone a semi is rude” Lysa warned as she climbed down from the ladder.

“Sorry mama. Welcome back” He apologized and gave her a quick hug.

“Actually what are you?” Lysa asked her, “I noticed those but I actually thought I was seeing things because I couldn’t see your brand”

“Oh…” Agnes smiled. She was wondering why Lysa didn’t comment on her odd look.

“It’s quite fascinating that you have two different eye colors. Does it make you see two different things?” a little blood elf girl that Agnes hadn’t noticed at first asked.

“No” Agnes shook her head. That was a question she’d never been asked before and this was her first time seeing children not in the colosseum.

“Am I invisible?” Noet had to ask.

“Leader!” The children exclaimed going to hug him.

Agnes was stunned. Noet had always been in the colosseum, how did they know him?

“We always go to watch his matches” Lysa said as though knowing her thoughts

Agnes raised a brow.

“They don’t give the best impression at first but it was our only way of contact. Did you actually think he sang and danced because he felt like it?” Lysa laughed.

Agnes stopped herself from nodding.

“Are you avoiding the question? What are you?” Lysa asked again and when Agnes didn’t answer she continued, “I feel like you are a wolf lurk- elf mix but you don’t have that gray thing that shows you’re a half”

Agnes reflexively touched her hair in panic and turned towards Noet.

It would seem he forgot too, judging by his expression.

“Lysa, please take us to a private room now” his face was stern.

Lysa was surprised but she obeyed anyways and led them away. Soon they re-emerged with Agnes having a lock of her hair looking gray.

“Well if that isn’t suspicious, I don’t know what is” Lysa remarked.

“I’ll explain it to you later” Noet promised.

Agnes gave him a look and he shook his head, “She has to know. If we’d been careful from the beginning we could hide it but hiding it now will just make her suspicious”

“I can hear it all” Lysa commented.

“I know, I didn’t try to stop you from hearing,” Noet beamed at her.

Lysa shrugged and walked away, “Later then. Let me go get the children occupied with something else so they forget about this little incident”

Noet nodded at that and asked Agnes to follow him.

They walked on, past a huge hall and into a room that looked like a meeting room.

For a ‘small’ hideout, this is quite big, Agnes thought.

When they’d arrived in front of a small cottage, Noet and Lysa had led their horses inside the quite tall doors and Agnes was surprised to see it was a stable inside. They had climbed down from the horses, brushed away some hay and entered into their underground hideout.

It would seem that everything in this Kingdom was underground.

He stopped in front of a medium sized door where a brutish blood elf wearing a chest plate stood.

“Leader” he gave a nod in Noet’s direction and narrowed his eyes at Agnes beside him, “Who…?”

“Harry” Noet acknowledged the man, “I’ll do official introductions later. I’d like to talk to the lady”

Harry nodded and opened the door.

Noet nodded back and walked through, Agnes following closely behind. Harry followed them inside and closed the door.

Noet noticed this and gave a weak smile, “Alone please, Harry”

The man sent a barely perceptible glance towards Agnes’ menacing claws and shook his head, “I don’t think that’s okay, Leader”

“It’s ok. I can take care of myself” Noet smiled.

The man furrowed his brow, ready to shake his head again.

“Why aren’t you with the others?” Noet suddenly asked.

“Huh?” the man was obviously surprised by the question then he grinned, “I thought it’d be bad if there was no one to officially welcome you”

“Bullshit, you just didn’t want to die” Noet scoffed.

The man gave a fake cough, “Leader, you have misunderstood…”

“And I’m much stronger than you. If I can’t protect myself, then you’ll protect me?” Noet said.

“That… there’s power in numbers…” Harry croaked.

“Harry”

“Yes, Leader?”

“Leave. And tell Irisa I said you can have some extra food” Noet couldn’t help but chuckle.

The man’s face lit up brightly and he gave an over enthusiastic salute, “Yes, Sir!”

Harry wasted no time in disappearing from the room, leaving the two alone.

Noet turned to see Agnes making a strange face to which he just shrugged to.

She didn’t ask anything about that little interaction, just walked into the room.

Noet sat on the head of the table in the room while Agnes just stood at the opposite side, leaning on the wall.

“I’m sure you have many questions. I’ll answer them later. Right now, we need to discuss what your cover will be”

“No. I want my questions answered now”, Agnes replied.

Noet looked at her and sighed, “I have things going on right now. I promise everything will be explained tomorrow”

“Some days ago, I thought I knew Noet, but today I find out I don’t really do” Agnes faced his squarely, “So essentially, you’re a stranger to me”

“Then why did you follow me here?” he asked, raising a brow.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go” Agnes said simply.

Noet’s mouth twitched, “Then leave”

“I don’t want to. I will just get captured or something similar” she continued shamelessly.

Noet was quiet, simply sizing her up

“Just tell me what this place is. Hideout does cut it, it’s obviously something bigger” Agnes moved and took a seat.

“Are those always going to look like that?” Noet asked pointing to her claws.

“I’m not sure, it just… don’t try to change the subject” Agnes glared at him.

He shrugged, “Was just giving it a shot. Well then, what do you want to know about me?”

“I don’t want to know about you. I want to know what this place is and why you brought me here”, Agnes asked.

Noet smiled, “I didn’t bring you here. You just followed along”

“I’m not stupid, Noet. You always have a plan and you wouldn’t have let me find out about this place if you didn’t want to use me for something”

“And you’re fine with being used?”

“I don’t really give a fuck, Noet. I just want to know why and what this is. I hate going in blind”

“Well, you’re right. I brought you here for something. But not exactly to use you” Noet agreed.

“Right” Agnes rolled her eyes, “I want to know what this place is first”

Noet smiled, “I’m not going to tell you when I don’t fully trust you. Just know that this is simply part of something greater”

“I think I’m pretty trustworthy” Agnes argued.

“Well, I don’t think so” he shook his head, “I’ll tell you when I think you’re not going to run off when you get a chance”

Agnes clicked her tongue, “Ok, you’re just going to avoid saying anything anyways. What do you need me for?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow” Noet said.

“For Bermia’s sake, Noet!” She snapped.

“Why do you have to know now?”

Agnes narrowed her eyes and vanished from his sight.

Noet noticed her sudden aggression but couldn’t get away in time. He found himself nailed to the wall by the neck with a very angry face in front of him.

He felt a little pain on his neck and realized her claws nicked him. He clicked his tongue and wanted to try to escape but her next words made his freeze.

“The moment you try anything, I’ll crush your neck”

Noet didn’t move, his eyes burning with anger.

“Look here. I’ve had enough of my life being in the hands of someone else. Either you start talking or this is going to end ugly” she growled.

Noet didn’t answering just glaring at her as though daring her to try.

She was in his territory. If he was dead, she wouldn’t make it out alive. They just stared at each other like that, the atmosphere growing tenser by the second.

Then suddenly, Agnes grinned, “I was right”

He knitted his brow confused at her sudden change.

“You have no one guarding you. What is a leader with no personal guard?”

He narrowed his eyes at that. She released her hand and let him drop to the floor.

He rubbed his injured neck and glared at her.

“Sorry, mistake “she replied insincerely, “Since you were being all secretive, I thought it’d be better if I just confirmed my suspicions”

“Now that you’ve confirmed that, what will you do?” he asked, affirmed her deductions.

“Nothing. Do you have a spare room I can take?”

He took a deep breath and pointed to the door, “Ask Lysa”

She nodded and began to walk towards the door, ignoring the deathly glares he was shooting at her.

Then she stopped and looked to him, “I thought you wanted to discuss my cover?”

“Get out” he said through gritted teeth.

Agnes flashed him a grin, “Ok”

***

Agnes woke up to a very unfamiliar ceiling. She stared at it until her mind ordered itself and she remembered where she was. She glanced at the practically empty room and sunk her head back into the surprisingly soft pillow.

She didn’t want to get out of bed yet. She raised her claws to her eyes and stared at her vicious looking limbs. She retracted her drawn claws and they like always, pulled themselves into her skin but she didn’t really feel it.

Honestly, they weren’t as big as they were when she first transformed back to her demon-elf state. Back then her hands stayed black and ginormous, making it impossible for her to actually move them.

Then as she stayed in complete control of her emotions, it had slowly reduced in size and went back to her actual skin color. Just like Lysa said, her claws resembled a wolf lurk that had activated their bloodline, just without the fur.

She heard a knock on her door and stared at it not saying anything.

The knock came again and a tearful voice could be heard calling her name, “Raena?”

The voice sounded a lot like Lysa’s but why would Lysa be crying.

“Come in” Agnes said, but before she could even finish her words, Lysa burst in and enveloped her in a bear hug.

“You poor thing” Lysa wept and Agnes took a long time to calm her down and find out what was wrong.

She wasn’t used to dealing with crying people at all!

Apparently, Noet had told Lysa Agnes’ story. About how she, a human orphan was captured by Xerox. A particular group of human scientists infatuated with semis. They researched ways to access the variety of attributes a semi could access and ways to completely change one’s race.

She was just one of the many unfortunates. In Agnes’ case they tried to make her an elf but that didn’t work so they tried to make her a lurk. Agnes was deemed a failure and tossed out after which she was captured by slave traders and sold to the colosseum. And Agnes made her hair gray to avoid talking about her past. After all, simply saying she was a half was easier to explain.

Wow, Agnes thought sarcastically, I didn’t know I was a human experiment.

But she didn’t say that to Lysa. Instead she made a sad face, as though the memories of that time was coming back and told Lysa that all was fine and she had forgotten about it.

Lysa didn’t believe her but figured Agnes didn’t want to talk about it. She patted the girl on the head and smiled, “It’s okay. You’re now part of us”

Agnes nodded solemnly, forcing herself to tear up a bit.

Lysa ruffled her hair, “Irisa made a huge breakfast to celebrate yesterday’s success. She’s a good cook. Come and eat when you’re ready”

Agnes nodded with a smile.

“Do you know where the dining hall is?”

“Yes” Agnes nodded again.

“Good” Lysa’s hand finally left her hair and she pointed to the mirror at a corners of the room, “I brought that last time. Nobody uses this room so it’s pretty empty. Sorry”

“It’s fine” Agnes shook her head.

“Ok then. Wash up and come eat” Lysa grinned and left the room.

I didn’t know I could act… well, I don’t know if she believed my fake acting, Agnes blinked, you learn new things every day.

Agnes put a hand to her hair and patted it down. She didn’t hate the whole head patting thing but she didn’t like it either. Lysa obviously thought she was a child –which she was. I mean if Lysa was a magus, she was probably some old bat already.

Her mouth twitched with dissatisfaction at the story Noet made up for her. She didn’t want to be looked at as some pitiful child!

She chose to ignore the fact that any other story would be hard pressed to explain her very obvious oddities.

She glanced at the mirror she hadn’t noticed before and looked at herself carefully.

Her right eye was a deep indigo and her left eye was a light blue. Her blonde hair had definitely gotten longer, reaching her waist now. She ran a hand through her hair and wondered why she hadn’t noticed the length before.

She looked at her hands and let her claws out again and with a quick swipe she chopped it in half. She turned to the right and left checking it and it looked like a pretty horrid haircut.

Not that she cared much. It still was longer than she wished so she cut it again until it was just above her neck and in the process nicked herself.

She rubbed the blood off her neck, grumbling about her terrible control over these claws. She then started at the bright red blood on them and sighed. Luckily, her blood was still red no black as she would have no way to explain that.

She got up and began to take off her clothes when she realized she didn’t have a change of clothing. She spotted a white material next to the door and picked it up. It was a white cotton dress that was a tad bigger than her but she could wear it. A red towel lay folded underneath it.

Lysa probably dropped them there, Agnes reasoned. She picked up the towel, dropped the dress on her bed and walked towards the bath house. She had thought that there would be a bathroom but apparently not.

The extravagant treatment at the colosseum once again came to her mind. There were bathrooms. Good beds if you decided to buy one and good food if u bought them too. She had never understood why people wanted to escape when life in the colosseum was quite easy; fight, eat, sleep.

But now that she was out she finally understood. They seeked that sense of freedom the colosseum never gave. The place was oddly tempting to stay in and they never treated one terribly; something which was usual for slaves in other Kingdom. But in the colosseum you were trapped.

When she was done with all that ‘work’ and was dressed up, she felt refreshed. Her head seemed to have also cooled and she didn’t feel close to tearing up at every second. She thought about Lysa’s offer and began to head towards the dining hall even though she didn’t feel very hungry.

The directions from the previous day were quite easy to follow and the hall was quite conspicuous making it easy to find.

Entering the dining hall greeted her with the lovely mix of blood and chicken. It resembled the smell of the dining hall in the colosseum but the smell of blood wasn’t as thick. Looking around she could spot freshly injured men and women chortling and being as loud as they fucking could.

How swell.

She wanted to clasp a hand over her ears and something worrying came to mind. Was her hearing enhanced? She didn’t think so or she’d notice sounds being louder than usual before. So they were most likely being as loud as fuck like she thought.

Pieces of shit, she almost said aloud. She felt her anger rising to alarming height and all of a sudden feeling quite hungry. For blood. Her hand twitched and she narrowed her eyes. This was really troubling. I thought demons didn’t like blood… or was that a lie too?

Many of her ‘knowledge’ from the colosseum were proving to be lies now that she’d stepped out. Suddenly, she remembered Carlos, the man she’d asked about demons. She hadn’t seen him since that day and had rationalized he’d probably found something better to do but he was most likely dead.

And come to think of it, he was the only one she’d ever asked about demons. Well, fuck, Agnes couldn’t help but curse inwardly. Her anger she was trying to calm down began rising again.

Happy thoughts, Agnes. Happy thoughts… what fucking happy thoughts!

She banged her right hand on the closest table, crushing it as splinters of the wooden table flew and the whole place grew silent. Just for an instant though and the majority quickly ignored her, while the rest gave her suspicious glances. She was not a familiar face.

Agnes cursed inwardly, holding her hand tightly. At least, her anger calmed down so that was a plus, eh?

No, she derided herself. She had to do something about this. A fighter that couldn’t control their emotions didn’t even count as one. You’d be dead before you know it.

She sat down on the table which had a quarter of it crushed in her anger, sighed and buried her face in her hands. Some of her hair entered her eyes with that actions and she flinched. Her hair prompted her to take a good look at the people in the hall. There were barely and humans.

Correction, there seemed to be no other human than Noet and the man he was talking to at a corner of the hall. There seemed to be a weird divide between the number of elves and blood elves in the hall. There interacted with each other, the divide was the amount. There was an equal number which was odd. They were in the blood elf Kingdom, right?

And more importantly, there were no semis. It would seem that all the semis in the Kingdom were stuffed into the colosseum for entertainment purposes. She pulled some of her hair in front of her face and looked at it for a second.

She had washed off the gray dye and didn’t re-apply it. It’d be faster for her to accept her if she was an ‘experiment’ than if she was a semi. She glanced at her large hands and couldn’t help but sigh again. She’d look completely human if she just hid her ears! Well, not really since humans couldn’t have blonde hair but she didn’t know that.

Anyways, people would be more accepting of her and she needed to fit in here. She was an escaped slave and even worse than that, an escaped demon. And if she saw no semi on the way here and her deduction wasn’t wrong, every semi found on the street would most likely be reported which was another reason why she should use her advantage to the fullest.

And from what she knew, people hated being around semis for whatever reason. The blood elves loved semis slaughtering themselves but co-existence was not going to happen.

Actually, now that she thought about it, why didn’t Noet make up this ‘experiment’ story in the colosseum? She’d blended in as a semi the whole time but apparently she didn’t even have to.

Agnes thought about it carefully and realized that savages and challengers alike were close-minded fucks like her. They were brought in pretty young and so the world they knew was limited. Noet seemed to be an exception but he was proving to be an exception to everything these days.

Suddenly, Lysa berating her kid yesterday came into her mind. Half not semi. Apparently, semi was a derogatory word. She felt sort of amused that she didn’t know that before. And she’d identified herself as a semi until now.

What was offensive about the word, exactly? She didn’t know and she didn’t really care but she wouldn’t keep calling herself that. She figured the people who coined the name were probably pieces of shits who had nothing better to do that to form a terrible name for people who hadn’t done anything.

Actually, is shits a word? I don’t think so…eh, whatever, Agnes shrugged. She was the definition of uneducated after all. Her thoughts had wandered and she couldn’t remember what she was just thinking about.

She then realized someone was calling her name and she looked up to see Lysa waving widely at her. The older lady had definitely grown fond of the girl in the span of hours for some reason. Was it the sob story?

“Raena!” she called again and Agnes smiled and waved back.

She felt a bit odd hearing her name. She wasn’t used to anyone else but Luken calling her but she knew she’d get used to it later.

“Come here!” Lysa motioned for her to come closer. Agnes got up, sending a guilty glance at the table at first before she realized that Noet was probably going to have to pay to have it fixed. And at that realization she was happier and not feeling any ounce of guilt.

As Agnes walked closer, the smell of chicken broth and fried chicken became stronger. She smiled at the old elven lady in a hair net who was next to Lysa. Just from the way the woman was, with her limited experience, Agnes could tell she wasn’t a cultivator. Sadly, she wasn’t advanced warrior or a magus yet so she couldn’t identify a cultivator with anything but intuition.

She’d heard that’s when you developed Ki sense and mana sense but as she was a dual user, she wondered how that worked. Would she have two of them? Well, that was a long time away.

“This is Irisa, the head cook. Her personal cooking is heavenly” Lysa said with a smile when Agnes was within ear shot.

“Hmm” the lady scrutinized her, “She looks familiar… Noet brought her?”

She doesn’t call him Leader, Agnes noted.

“Yes. She’s from that foul place, that’s why you recognize her”

The old elf made a sound of acknowledgement, “It’s good she’s out of there. And Lysa already told me you have a situation so I won’t ask…” her eyes looked at her huge hands, “about your peculiarities”

“Thank you” Agnes said to no one in particular.

They both nodded anyways.

“Here” the old lady gave her a plate with a large serving of chicken breast, “you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about”

Agnes glanced at the still loud room and nodded.

“Hehe, Leader finally left that dreadful place! If that isn’t worth celebrating what is??” Lysa said with a grin.

“It was admirable for that child to accomplish all of this while being there. Now he’s out, he can finally spread his wings!” the old lady flashed her yellowing teeth.

“That’s … great” Agnes replied. She didn’t really know what all this was about. Was he some kind of rebellion against the Kingdom or something?

A very tall man, practically towering over them approached Lysa from the back and gave her a peck on the head.

She looked up with a smile, apparently already noticed the man, “Welcome back”

“Where’s Tien?” his deep voice said.

“He’s been looking for you. How did it go?”

He didn’t reply, instead fixed his gaze on Agnes, “Who’s this?”

“Raena” Lysa smiled, “You all were out when he came back with her. He’ll introduce her later”

He nodded and shifted his gaze back to Lysa, “It went much better than I thought. We lost a few men but the majority was able to escape with their lives”

“I can see a lot of sad faces” Irisa said, looking at people who weren’t as cheerful as the others

“They lost arms or legs during this, it’s understandable” he said, “They will have to leave after today”

“True, too bad” Lysa shook her head, “Gretel must be saddened”

“I hope she doesn’t enter try to enter closed door cultivation again” Irisa commented heartily.

Lysa laughed, “She might. Who knows, the gods might favor her and let her become a magus”

“What gods” Irisa snorted, “Her talent is up to here. She should be satisfied with being able to use 3rd circle healing magic”

“Lady Irisa, are you quarreling with Gretel again?” the man laughed loudly.

“That wench refused to heal me again” Irisa retorted.

“You probably just touched something hot and screamed to be healed again” Lysa refuted her.

“I’m old and fragile. I have to be healed to preserve my skin” Irisa replied with a smirk.

“Fragile my ass” Lysa snorted, “Anyways, you call yourself an expert in the kitchen yet you burn yourself all the time. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

Irisa opened her mouth to say something then suddenly turned towards Agnes. She sized up the girl and snarled, “What are you still doing here? Go away”

Agnes was startled but she didn’t say anything. She made a face and began to walk away. When she turned around, she sneered inwardly, if you wanted me to go, why didn’t you say something? Rude thing.

And so, grouchy Agnes found somewhere to sit and eat.