The Swarm

Explosions filled the air, concussive forces travelling far from their impact point to maximize structural damage. Screams could be heard over the raining of rubble, behind it all he could make out the quiet sound of buzzing drones. The formation of drones he’d seen earlier was already splitting up for low altitude sweeps of the city streets.

Lilith charged ahead with incredible speed, leaving Matt behind even though he ran with all his strength. The rifle painfully rubbed against his bruises and put pressure on his broken arm, adrenaline rushing through his blood worked to dull the pain.

She rushed around a corner to the nearest visible drone in the sky, which had raced through the city streets and was now hovering and firing missiles and darts with frightening pace. Due to their sheer numbers, it wasn’t getting hit by any kind of arrow or projectile, in fact none were even coming close enough to force it to dodge. The few people he noticed with weapons were throwing them to the ground to run faster.

Following Lilith around the corner, Matt discovered her with her back against the wall creeping her head around to scout the drone floating above. She was equipped with nothing but her sword and curses, which he was still clueless about.

“I could make it if I jump.” The thought flowing into him from her as her sword quickly made its way from its sheath.

“Stop!” He called out to her, causing her to pause for long enough that he could catch up. “Even if you can make it to that height it’ll dodge before you have a chance of hitting it. Not to mention it’ll hit you the moment you leave the ground.”

The rockets equipped on the thing were able to rapidly adjust the drones position, he recalled how hard it had been to shoot them with his own rifle in training. He recollected how they’d easily dodged all kinds of projectiles thrown at them a few days earlier; fire, arrows, bolts, none of them ever had a real chance of hitting.

Matt had barely stood by her side for a second before she’d made new plans, acting on them too fast for him to be able to interfere. Faster than his eyes could track, she’d snatched his pistol from its holster and was leaning out aiming it at the drone.

Click.

The pistol didn’t fire, the reason, Matt knew, was because of the safety currently switched on.

“Shit.” Knowing how quickly the drone would bead in on them he grabbed Lilith from her back plate and pulled her back deeper behind cover, his mouth open as he did what he could to survive the incoming concussive force.

As predicted a missile immediately flew straight at the wall where Lilith had been standing only a moment earlier. The missile letting off such a powerful concussive force as to tear down the wall and most of the nearby buildings as if they suddenly fell apart.

Knowing how limited his time was Matt felt out for a part of himself that he was trained to avoid using. It would shorten his lifespan by years if he overused it but without his armour and just about to get shot he accepted the risk.

He let the implanted organ in his body release its chemicals. Instantly as the ‘booster’ filled his blood stream the world slowed, each heart beat moving painfully slow even though it was at triple it’s normal pace. His hands and body moved with precision, twisting and awkwardly cradling the rifle in his arms, aiming just a little over the rubble.

He had less than a heartbeat to make the shot before they were dead. The drone appeared moving faster than he was able to react to even in his current state.

He squeezed the trigger as soon as the machine filled his sights, a moment too late. With his combat enhanced senses, he watched as the poison dart came for him, too quickly to dodge. He felt a moment of satisfaction seeing the drone explode on the impact of his bullet, evidently enough damage was done to initiate instant self-destruct.

With a short sigh, he accepted the fate that was bearing down on him, a dart the size of his little finger with his name written on it. He felt relieved from the responsibilities of his life, as they started to finally fade away. He could no longer fight against the inevitable, resisting death was for heroes and idiots.

As the dart was only an arm’s length from striking him, a flash split the air faster than his eyes could make sense of. The dart that had been on a perfect path for the centre of his chest was suddenly flew right past his head, carving a bloody line in his cheek with its stabilizers.

“What…?” Matt stood still, shocked frozen as he tried to understand what had just happened, the boosters in his blood stream running dry and time returning to normal as he touched the fresh wound on his cheek.

Lilith stood right beside him, her sword held in arms glowing intensely in a deep green light. The lines on her skin clung tightly to the length of her arms throbbing gently with her heartbeat. The pistol she’d held had already been dropped to the ground so that she could focus on the sword.

In that moment, Matt realized that she’d saved him, somehow bringing her sword to bear quickly enough to slap aside a supersonic dart.

“ktsu.” A sharp breath left her mouth as she fell to her knees, the green colouration gradually fading from her arms and the green ropes gradually spreading out across her body. As the intensity of the light faded her expression became less tense, less pained.

“Thanks.” Matt whispered as he picked up the pistol frightened that they might be swarmed in drones in moments. He flicked off the safety and threw it to Lilith, as she was still coming to her feet. “You have 12 shots before you have to learn how to reload.” He threw a pair of magazines her direction as well.

Naturally she cleanly swiped the pistol and magazines from the air, eyeing the sky around them for potential targets.

“What the hell is going on?” Lilith turned to him, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and slamming him against a wall the pistol still held in her free hand.

“I… I guess someone ordered a sweep or something.” He was shivering a little from his earlier boost, losing slight control over his extremities. The particular chemicals that had allowed such precise movements took a particular toll on his body afterwards, but without them he would never have made the shot.

“A sweep?” Lilith growled at him, suddenly there was a massive pain in the back of his skull, blood ran down his nose as he felt his mind melting.

Her nose bleeding just like his own, Lilith starting speaking familiar words, “Sending in drones to destroy everything or kill all of the enemy combatants, destruction is usually caused through a pair of miniature concussive or incendiary missiles. While lethality is achieved through use of darts tipped with a powerful neurotoxin.” Not only was she speaking his language but that line came directly out of his training manual, something he’d memorized to the word.

“To kill everybody?” She murmured quietly.

“I don’t know, maybe.” He sighed not knowing what to do anymore, “Sometimes it’s just to scare people by killing off a fraction of their population.”

“You’re not getting away with this! I will kill you and every one of your people here and throw their corpses back to wherever you came from.” She returned to speaking her language but the rage, and meanings were translated directly into his mind.

“I… I…” Matt was struck wordless by her intense passion.

“Unless you help me to stop this.” She let go of his shirt, letting him stand on his own feet again as he shook in place.

“I…”

“Save them”

“Okay.” At the sounding of his word, a drone buzzed overhead quickly targeting their position. Before it could fire off a single dart or missile it’d been blown into separate chunks of metal.

The pistol he’d handed Lilith was in her hand as she rapidly swung around too fast for his eyes to keep up with. She raced around the wall they’d been hiding behind, on her way around blowing other drones from the sky in a matter of moments.

He wasn’t able to keep up with her bullet count and gave up on trying. Feeling an immense pressure out of her expectations he lifted his rifle and started to target a drone which had escaped his companion by simply being too far out of range. He fired off a single round as his holographic sights turned green indicating a friendly target.

The drone quickly separated in mid-flight exploding, scattering pieces of debris in all directions. In the direction of the shattered wall other drones were dodging stray arrows but they didn’t have the same luxury when it came to bullets.

Surprisingly a few of them were getting hit from arrows fired from the ground, though the arrows moved with a speed comparable to the darts the drones were firing. Even more unexpected was that these arrows actually managed to puncture the drones light armour, damaging a few enough to initiate the self-destruct safety.

Lilith was still charging ahead with a pace that was difficult to keep up with, using his pistol she’d already flawlessly destroyed 10 drones with 11 shots. Having missed only once when firing out of the pistols effective range. Turning on the spot she fired behind them where a drone had managed to fly through the city without being noticed. Her last bullet turned it to shrapnel in a heartbeat.

As soon as she fired the last round a massive headache emerged from the back of his head, causing his nose to bleed again. Meanwhile Lilith was confidently reloading the pistol that she’d only held once before. Her motions smooth enough to put him to shame. After the breath it took to reload the headache passed and Matt was feeling close to normal again.

In the nearby vicinity, a fireball flung from a building targeted a drone singing one of its rotors, but not significantly enough to take it down. Before the drone had a chance of returning fire Lilith had already fired off a round into it, and moving with inhuman speed she leapt the direction that the fireball had come from.

Wondering why she’d given up on the drones Matt looked skyward to notice that the only remaining drones in the sky were distant and retreating. Apparently, they’d surpassed the retreat threshold. After a certain number of losses they were programmed to retreat for mission re-evaluation and resource conservation. It was pointless for such valuable machines to be sent on suicide missions after all.

Matt followed after Lilith with only a fraction of the pace she’d managed, as she ran he noticed some dark green ‘ropes’ wrapped around her legs, similar to how her arms had been before.

Slipping on a loose organ that had only recently been a part of a nearby body, he slid onto his backside as he turned the corner following Lilith. While rushing to his feet he dosed himself with another slow motion chemical, the shaking of his muscles faded away as he scanned the area. The skies were clear, he was able to see in an instant, the ground was covered in scattered corpses and a few people soon to join with the dead.

Down the muddy ally, Lilith stood over a woman with a weeping baby held in her arms. The woman was whispering, “Thank you, Thank you, thank you.” But her eyes were turned not to Lilith but to a man in a black cloak who was hurriedly running down a muddy road just a little in front of Lilith. Instead of chasing the presumed mage she turned her back to him, facing Matt with a forceful glare.

“That man was the mage,” She pointed at a nearby corpse blackened from burns, “Understand.”

“Not really.” Matt released his hold on the boosters, returning him to normal speed. The shakes instantly returned as he stood in the midst of corpses.

“Understand?” She said more forcefully walking up to him with the pistol levelled at his chest.

“N- No.” He stumbled over the word, biting his tongue as his muscles grew restless.

Lilith rushed at Matt throwing him hard against a nearby pile of rubble that crunched under his weight. He stared up at the blue ceiling so high above, his eyes wandering around occasionally twitching as he felt his vision slipping in and out. This wasn’t the feeling of his consciousness fading though, just another side effect of the booster when it was overused.

Matt pulled himself up, rubbing at the place in his chest where Lilith had hit him. He could feel a few loose ribs but couldn’t feel any pain, which would have concerned him had he the presence of mind for such a thing.

Stepping out into the light took monumental force of will on his part. Before he was able to recover properly Myra was suddenly beside him having appeared form nowhere, Lilith standing opposite looked incredibly angry. The same face she’d been wearing since the drones showed up.

“Where is the mage? Where the hell is he? Did you kill it?” Lilith stared her down without reply as she was interrogated by Myra.

When Lilith didn’t reply, Myra turned to him her face coloured with questions and uncertainty but filled to bursting with a powerful force that bore down on him without mercy. A pure hatred that he had never seen before. He pointed down at the corpse that Lilith had said was the mage, saying one brief word in her language, “Mage.”

“Dammit, why the hell are they always dead before I get there.” She sheathed her sword and jumped over a nearby pile of rubble before racing away towards where there was more intense screaming.

Lilith glanced his direction, her eyes not filled with contempt for the first time since the shooting began, but he didn’t understand why. In the back of his mind he could hear something like laughter, a sickly cackling which was more of a twisted imitation of a laugh by something not quite human, than a sound a living person might actually make.

The screams had died down already and it seemed that no drones were flying over the city, all of them either destroyed or retreating. He suspected that the System would complete a full re-evaluation before trying this again which would take some time and scout missions.

“Dammit.” Lilith was now standing by the body or a dying young woman trying to keep the blood in her body from leaking out. “Hey Krilm, is there anything you can do, some powerful medicine or something? If you have weapons like that surely you have something that can fix this.”

The woman she was holding down was clawing at Lilith and screaming loudly, a few scattered burns across her face was the least of her problems since her right arm was only connected to her hand with a tattered section of skin.

“If I had my gear, maybe.” He looked around at the scene of carnage and destruction, his eyes scanning the area covered in shrapnel and gore hopelessly searching for something long lost.

“Save them.” The ethereal whisper coming from ahead of him, Matt stood frozen for a breath before he saw faint movement from where the voice had spoken. Almost like the flutter of a skirt.

“Ren?” he whispered disbelievingly, sprinting after the ghost of a person he’d watched die.

Turning the corner the whisper came again, “Save them.” and a gust caught the dress that had flown free from its lifeless nature, now moving around the small dwelling to his right. He chased after it, afraid to let it go without him, afraid that it might disappear. Afraid that he might actually see it as something as mundane as it likely was. The thought betraying his vain hope that it was the presence of someone not long passed.

Turning the corner the loose dress came to a stop atop a pile of corpses, partial and otherwise. He ran towards it throwing aside chunks of dead flesh, and kicking aside corpses, a few which still blinked; he didn’t have the time to be disgusted as his possessed hands moved passionately.

Underneath a pile of loose intestines, he gripped onto something familiar, something essential. He tore the medical pack up into the air, feeling a strange divine essence from the construction line product. It felt like he’d lost it a lifetime ago, but now he could finally get to work.

Matt tore open the package while walking at a fast pace his trembling fingers always a moment away from dropping what he held. The first thing he took out was a long thick needle with a white serum already loaded into the chamber.

With a deep breath he buried it into his broken arm where the bone had split, at first the needle released a deep sound informing him that it wasn’t in the right place. Shifting the needle around forcefully eventually the noise stopped, sensing the location of the injury the device quickly injected a solidifying agent to the ends of the bone, before squealing loudly to indicate it was finished.

Next, he did the same to the broken ribs in his chest, not bothering to take off his clothes and just pushing through them instead. Finally, to finish he unzipped the top half of his clothes and slapped a yellowish liquid onto the bruising, which reacted almost immediately changing colour in recognition of the healing it was going through.

As he finished the last of his medical treatments Matt finally arrived back where Lilith was caring for the young woman. Who was looking far more pale than she had been.

“Now is not the time to steal from the dead Krilm, get over here!” He ran her direction while pulling equipment out of his bag. He shoved a small whistle infused with pain killer into the young woman’s mouth before drawing his knife. Without any hesitation he cut of the hand where the flesh turned to nothing but skin.

Holding the blade in his mouth from its blunt side, he reached his hands into the medical pack locating the artificial skin buried inside.

The worst injury being the gaping wound where her arm suddenly ended, still bleeding badly as she turned paler with every passing second. Matt stretched out a patch of live skin and coated the wound, the skin was an elastic dried replacement that reacted to blood, filling in holes in the skin and flowing inwards to repair broken arteries.

Holding down the skin until it bonded, Matt used his other hand to dig through his bag of supplies. That done, he took out a small bottle and quickly coated the burns with a spray on treatment. Where he sprayed quickly expanded, appearing like large white pustules as they cooled and disinfected the skin underneath, very soon it would layer the skin with a replacement.

He removed the whistle from the now quiet woman’s mouth before standing up. All of his work just a basic soldier’s first aid and was finished in less than 30 seconds. Matt felt bad that this was all he could do for the woman, if he had the resources of a real doctor he could probably reconstruct her arm in no time.

Lilith, a little shocked, looked at the young woman for a moment before grabbing Matt by the arm dragging him towards the next injured person.

“Save them”

For some time he was dragged from injured person to injured person until the sun was high in the sky. By that time an effective triage had been setup and his equipment had almost completely run dry. Only a few sprays of his burnt skin remaining. He’d already treated his own injuries as best as he could and was tired enough to fall asleep but this was not nearly the end of the day yet.

The sunlight rained down on his skin and he could find no shadows in which to walk as he followed after Lilith, who was still, after all this time, walking through the city inspecting the damage.

She was more concerned with the wellbeing of the people they passed that with the widespread destruction, but for the most part those who were heavily injured were all gathered together for the few surgeons and apothecaries in the city to treat them.

Having used up the almost all of his medical supplies on the wounded strangers in the street, he felt no regret for its loss. The only regret he carried was that without those supplies he could no longer hear that ephemeral voice calling out to him, but his satisfaction for having helped so many overwhelmed that regret.

They travelled to the edge of the city, towards the walls which had in numerous places been completely levelled. As they arrived to the scene they heard the moans of the dying an all too familiar sound for this particular morning. Alongside the moans, they could hear the grunting of men pushing themselves to the limit and the sounds of rocks shifting.

Lilith pushed ahead faster faced with those noises, though she was obviously weakened from all her hard work. In particular every time she used her ‘cursed’ abilities she seemed to become that much more worn down.

The view was about what Matt had expected, not much in the way of corpses because most of the dead were buried under the thick rubble. The first thing that they noticed was a group of men moving rocks off of a clearly suffering soldier, his uniform stained in red.

Lilith wordlessly shoved aside the tired soldiers who didn’t have the stamina to complain or to thank her. They’d been attempting to move a particularly massive segment of wall that had trapped the mans legs, but with little success. One soldier with a pickaxe in hand had been trying to separate it, but that was obviously not going well.

Within moments of arriving Lilith focused her powers again, the lines on her skin glowing green as it tied itself around her four limbs shivering with power. She didn’t grunt or sigh but for the first-time Matt watched as she trembled, unable to hold on for long. The nearby soldiers were struck in awe by her strength, failing to realize that they were needed.

Matt his body flush with a weakened burst of adrenaline raced forwards to drag the injured man out from the rubble. The man screaming all the while, not even able to form words as he was crying out for the gods.

As soon as the man was free Lilith released her grip on the rubble letting it hit the ground with a loud thump. She rested herself against it as the colours in her skin faded. This time it was taking her a lot longer to recover than it had earlier in the day.

The soldiers shaken out of their stupor by the loud sound were scrambling to give the man first aid and take him to the surgeons. Without immediate and proper care that man wouldn’t survive, even if they had the technology of his homeland; Matt held little hope for the man’s survival.

As he felt waves of nausea and frustration emanating from Lilith, Matt realized that she knew it better than himself. Together they caught their breath attempting to regain their strength while sitting on a murder weapon, their feet soaking in blood.

“What exactly do you call those lines on your skin.” Matt asked, trying to distract himself from the death surrounding him.

“Stama.” She sighed, and closed her eyes making it clear that she was no longer willing to answer him from here on.

Time passed slowly yet it seemed to last an eternity, eventually Lilith stood up, not even bothering to speak to Matt before striding off a new direction at a brisk walk. Matt following Lilith could hardly feel anything anymore, but wasn’t in the right state of mind to be able to sleep but he wasn’t in such a state that could be accurately described as awake.

Ahead of them a woman was calling out loudly, her voice carrying over the moans of the wounded. “Arcides! Are you there?” She was dressed in a brighter shade of purple than he’d seen all day, that clearly clashed with the battlefield she walked through. Her blonde hair was cut short, neatly in a charming style that he didn’t recognise.

Lilith walked straight up to the girl and almost passed her by before she was tapped on the shoulder, “Excuse me miss, have you met a man named Arcides in this city the last few months? I have been looking for the man for the last half a year but he’s impossible to track down.” She had a slight burn along her cheek, likely from some kind of incendiary missile from the drone strike, though she showed no care for it.

“No, I’m sorry I haven’t.” Lilith looked at her face for a few more moments before breaking out in surprise, “Sashella?!?”

“Oh, don’t mind that, I’m not who you think I am anymore. Now I’m just a woman searching for her future husband.” She didn’t seem to recognise Lilith.

“Is… is that so?” Lilith stood thinking for a little while before replying, “Well I can’t leave you to dig through corpses alone while looking for a loved one. Me and this Krilm will help.”

“Oh! Why thank you, Mr. Krilm and Miss?” The woman seemed a little absent of mind but was incredibly kindly.

Lilith looked into her eyes, pausing again before she spoke. Ordinarily this would cause an awkward silence but Sashella didn’t seem to notice at all, waiting silently for a reply while smiling cheerfully.

“Lilith.” She finally said, speaking her name confidently, as if expecting something from the other woman.

“Lilith, what a fine name. So then, let’s start moving. Arcides!” She continued her crying out as Lilith was left shocked watching the woman diligently crying out her lover’s name. By now Matt was convinced that the woman was in a heavy state of shock, she continued walking, glancing back only to wave them onwards.

She calmly stepped over a corpse without looking at it, like she might step over a large stone or fallen tree. Blood had already stained her long flowing skirt. Lilith watched her go without showing any inclination to follow but Matt was possessed by a purpose too powerful to let him just stand by.

“Save them.” He told himself stepping forwards and tapping the woman on the shoulder.

“Huh? Mr. Krilm? Oh that’s it I haven’t told you what he looks like yet!” She exclaimed leaning her head to the side.

“Matt.” He pointed at himself, hoping that a slow introduction might help to shake her out of her shock.

“Matt? So you aren’t mister Krilm then? My apologies, Miss Lilith you really shouldn’t lie like that it is unbecoming of a young woman.” Lilith stood frozen looking back at her as if looking at an alien.

Taking a deep breath Matt pulled all of his resources, causing his nose to bleed. Before Lilith could object he started speaking, “Sashella how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Hmmm? Four.” Correct

“What colour is the sky?” He asked, expecting an insane response.

“Blue right now, though there is a lot of smoke.” She retained a pretty smile on her lips.

“What is your name?” He asked finally, hoping he’d be able to tell if it was true or not.

“Sashella vaCollins though is suspect that my last name has been disinherited since I ran away from home. Soon enough I’ll have a new last name anyway… though I’m not sure what it will be.” She looked thoughtful yet still cheerful as she spoke.

“You ran away from home?!” Lilith’s eyes bulged outwards as she asked the question, her nose dripping with blood, infusing Matt with guilt.

“Well so did you it seems. A princess joining with the Knights, I didn’t know you were into those kinds of fairy-tale cliques. I half wish that I went that far myself but then I wouldn’t be able to be with Arcides.” She appeared truly regretful for a few moments.

Lilith shocked again, now that she was recognised. “Running off after some foreign prince is pretty damn clique too Sash.” She mentioned walking up to her friend while trying to let her shock dissipate.

“He’s not a prince.” Of all things she seemed to be thrilled at the fact.

“He’s… not…” and again Lilith was caught speechless, Matt was starting to like this young woman.

“He’s a travelling painter, and is always grumpy. I fell in love the moment he told mother that he couldn’t paint her a portrait.”

“What?” Lilith asked fully gripped by the story.

“He said he wouldn’t be able to fully capture the horror of her beauty. In those very words. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen mother angry.” She burst out laughing at the thought of it. The beautiful charm of the sound in complete conflict with the corpse strewn city in which they were now standing.

“I don’t know whether that’s the most stupid or courageous act I’ve ever heard of.” Lilith let her words die out as she watched her friend disbelievingly.

Speaking calmly Matt decided to cut into the ensuing silence, “Sorry if this is blunt but how do you know that your future husband isn’t dead?”

Expecting a tense silence, he was surprised that Sahsella was still smiling, “We’re bonded, I’d know if he died even if he was on the other side of the world.”

Lilith looked at her friend, Matt felt an uneasy feeling rising inside her. “Bonded?” Her words barely a whisper.

“Yeah, see?” Sashella lifted a necklace she had wrapped around her neck, showing off a glowing pink gem shaped like an inflated Y. He could sense from the pained part of his mind that it was meant to symbolize love.

Lilith hesitantly reached out for it, as her fingers brushed the gem she pulled back as if it were burning hot. “Magic!?” She whispered forcefully, “Where did you get this?!”

“I had it made by a travelling witch, she was a lot younger and kinder than the stories tend to write.”

“Why did you show this to me? You know I should kill you for owning that, don’t you?” Lilith stepped back as if afraid of her friend, or perhaps afraid of her own responsibilities.

“I only showed you, because it was you. I know how to keep a secret you know, I wouldn’t have made it this far otherwise.” Sashella carefully hid the gem back under her dress.

For a while they were silently staring at each other, Lilith’s gaze hesitant while Sashella’s was as genuinely jovial as it had been when they met her. “No point in wasting time. Shall we be off then?” She suggested turning her defenceless back to someone obligated to kill her.

“Tche” Lilith spat, removing her hand from the sword that she had ready to draw. Yet Matt noticed that her stama were still the dark black that he was used to seeing on her and had yet to change to either the green or purple variety.

They followed behind the strange woman, Matt still unsure as to whether she was okay in the head. After a short moment of silence Sashella let out a sharp breath touching at the burn on her cheek, finally recognising her injury. “I hope it doesn’t scar.” The words coming from her mouth for the first time sounded concerned.

“Wait up.” Matt finally remembered the last remains of his medical gear, and pulled out the spray bottle he’d secreted away. “Hold still and I’ll fix that.” His nose was bleeding again as he used Lilith’s language.

“Hmmmm?” Lilith gave her a brief nod to her unvoiced question.

Matt sprayed the last few droplets in the bottle onto her wound which instantly foamed up in white bubbles. Sashella did her best to hide her discomfort but stood still nonetheless.

“If you have something to wipe it off with it should be mostly better now.” Matt set the now useless bottle back into his small medical pack hoping to find some worth out of it later.

With an expression of doubt, she pulled a small thin cloth from her pocket, wiping away all of the foam. Underneath was a translucent layer of ‘skin’ covering the now calmed burn.

“Incredible! How much did that set you back?”

Matt was caught wordless as he tried to understand her meaning without getting another nosebleed. “Don’t you dare,” Lilith hit him lightly on the back of the head, “He’s an idiot who doesn’t understand what money is.” She paused momentarily, “He’s one of the Monsters.”

“You mean the ones who just levelled this city?” she looked at Matt impressed but not the least bit fearful.

“Yes and no, he’s with me for now and if he does anything wrong… he’s my responsibility.”

“I see, I see.” She gave Matt a bright smile, “Good luck.” She directed her words at Matt before walking ahead with a pace that suggested an attempted escape.

“Shouldn’t you be saying that to me?” Lilith asked, too quick to be left behind by such a human tactic.

“You’re more frightening.” Sashella admitted without a hint of mercy.

Grunting Lilith tapped at her forehead, “I’ll just take that as a compliment.”

“That’s why you’re so scary.” Her words bringing another sigh out of Lilith.

Ahead they could see a small gathering of children. They were in an area surprisingly free of corpses, and were crowding around a young woman with Stama swimming across her skin.

“Myra?” He called out as he recognised her, inciting a burst of laughter from both Lilith and Sashella. “Huh? Did I say something wrong?” He kept his words to Lilith so that he didn’t stress their minds too much.

Giggling in a high pitched tone Lilith was unable to find the words to speak. Sashella on the other hand, helpfully blurted out a few words between her own laughs, “She’s trained you well.”

Rubbing away the tears they approached the group of children who were far more sober than his own companions. They managed to control themselves as they got closer to the children, who all seemed to be covered in minor wounds.

“Myra?” Matt was tempted to say more but was still unwilling to risk his wellbeing on it.

“Myra?” the kids echoed with confusion in their voices.

“yes, yes, kids this is Matt he’s my faithful sidekick and occasional mage bait.” Myra spoke to the kids waving at Matt oblivious of fact that he could understand her.

Neither woman with him was willing to explain that too her either, “Anyway, it’s good to see that you’re all still well, though considering you were with her I guess that’s to be expected.”

“He was a satisfactory sidekick today.” Lilith explained keeping her words short.

“Such kind words I’ve never heard from you before. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for this giant child, I mean I suppose I can understand, he is cute, but in a puppy kind of way, not like that.” She gently petted Matts head.

“Don’t be absurd, though this Krilm is perhaps almost as useful as a puppy.”

Matt glared at them both, but the only reaction he managed to earn was another pat on the head by Myra. “I’m a little busy at the moment so unless you’ve captured a mage for me to interrogate…”

“I’ll leave you to your hobbies then.” Lilith started walking away but Matt hesitated watching to see what she was doing with the children, only to see her pull out her trusted tools of torture she’d used on him just yesterday.

She pet the child on the head, “Okiri Vira,” Her words seemed strangely familiar as he walked away leaving her behind to attempt to treat the children’s cuts and bruises.

After walking only a few hundred metres they encountered a weak groaning from beneath some rubble of a nearby destroyed building. Clicking her tongue Sashella walked over towards the sound, throwing aside the thin clay wall that covered the dying man.

What they found underneath was only half a man, half of his organs had spilt out from his abdomen where it suddenly ended. Sashella put on another smile slightly different from before, a hint of sadness to it, “excuse me do you know a man named Arcides?” Yet still she interrogated the dying man.

“Archides…” the man mumbled, blood flowing from his lips, “Arcides… east, he said east where the wind blew… such an idiot…”

“Hey don’t talk that way about my darling!” Her words were playful, holding no actual anger. She unsheathed a dagger from under her skirt, the blade a fine curve, the hilt a simple bone white with some little design cut into it.

“Do you want help?” She asked putting the point of the blade to his throat, wordlessly he gripped her hand with a white knuckle grip. The knife lowered in one sudden movement cutting clean through to the spine. “Thank you kindly, I hope you find peace on the other side.” She wiped the blade of her knife on her cloth and put it back away.

Matt didn’t know how to feel about what just happened standing over the corpse of an innocent man.

“Well then, it was nice catching up but I really must be off.” Sashella suddenly said, the blood of the man she’d killed still warm as she wore a bright smile. “If I wait any longer my darling will run off somewhere again. It was a pleasure to meet you too Matt. Try not dying while I’m gone, and we shall meet again.” Without either of them saying a word Sashella left them behind heading, not for the gate, but rather for one of the massive openings in the wall.

“She’s awfully cheerful? Is she sick in the head?” Matt started walking back to the bath house which he hoped was still standing.

“I’ve asked that question a hundred times before and still don’t know.” Lilith let out a sigh, she was visibly exhausted.

“We did a lot to help this city today.” He let his thought out of his mind.

“We did.” She replied quietly, perhaps too tired to give him any of her usual attitude.

“So how much money did we earn?”