Understanding that it was belittled, the shampe beat its chest repeatedly before crouching down and closing the gap almost instantaneously. The beast slammed its palm down where Tia stood as if it were crushing an insect. Flesh met the asphalt path with a reverberating smack.

Silence once more filled the park and Alan was stunned. He couldn’t believe that she was even here and then she gets beaten to death in front of his very eyes? Reason left his mind and he brought himself to his feet. Shame and grief fueled his rage as he made a desperate charge towards the shampe. Alan understood this was nothing but glorified suicide but he couldn’t continue to complacent anymore. He was about to be within arm’s length of the shampe when it lifted his hand to inspect the damage of its previous attack. The beast raised an eye towards Alan in annoyance and tucked its index finger in to its palm before flicking him into a tree 20 feet away. It looked to the ground for its kill and saw nothing.

Alan rolled himself over in pain, he thought he may have broken a rib. The shampe was in view looking back and forth between the ground and its palm in confusion. He couldn’t see a body but he knew there was no way that Tia could have survived such an attack. He almost lost hope before he saw a glowing blue ball almost 3 feet in diameter shoot out of the woods. The ball exploded against the back of the beast’s head like a snowball and the area it stuck erupted into blue flames. The beast made a horrendous wailing noise while it tried to rip the solid fire out of its tangled body hair. Tia came into view with a blue glow on her hand.

“I can’t believe you actually smell worse.” She walked towards it while shaking her head. “Flames were a poor choice.”

The shampe was desperately trying to remove the flames by any means, even scraping itself against the pavement. It didn’t even realize the danger it was in until it felt a pull on its back. Tia had grabbed on to its back hair and placed her foot on its body, then she kicked. The result was a horrifying screech that forced Alan to shove his fingers in his ears.

“Oh look! If this didn’t stink to high heaven I could have a new fur carpet.” Tia ended up with a section of skin and fur in her hands that was larger than Alan’s bed. She threw it to the side before engaging the beast one more.

Blood was oozing from the back of the shampe. It looked towards Tia who was approaching with inhuman speed and readied itself. This time it didn’t underestimate its opponent.

Tia threw her fist and was grabbed by the wrist. It swung her twice into the ground like a ragdoll and then then threw her into the woods.

Tia emerged slowly from the brush stretching casually and acting like there was a kink in her neck. As she walked back onto the asphalt path she turned and her first step forward turned into a leap high above the beast. She extended her right leg downwards and brought her left foot to her knee to brace it as she fell back down.

*BOOM*

Her heel landed directly on the beast’s head and drove its face into the ground. Tia continued the smear its face into the pavement until she felt two hands on her calf. The shampe’s arms almost doubled in girth as it used the extent of its strength.

*SNAP*

Tia closed her eyes with her jaw clenched in obvious pain. She bent down and went to remove the hands from her destroyed leg. One by one she proceeded to completely tear the finger off the shampe’s two hands, each finger took almost a full minute to uncurl from her leg before she bent it backwards and twisted. Eventually her leg was held in a vice composed of two bloody stumps.

Alan didn’t understand how she was able to keep the shampe pinned to the ground with that small body of hers. He immediately felt stupid to be hung up on that one point when this whole situation was fucked up to begin with. The mystery of his first night with Tia was quickly paling in comparison to what he was seeing. The more he watched Tia defy common sense the more faith he gained in her. He fully understood that she was here for tonight for his safety and for that he felt both warmth and pain. Warmth because he felt her feelings for him and pain because he knew he didn’t deserve them.

Tia finally regained her freedom and hopped away on her good leg. After a series of snapping and popping noises she eventually distributed her weight on both feet equally. The shampe was already upright and looking at its hands in pain and anger. It closed its eyes and began to glow faintly. Slowly the size of the shampe shrunk down to that of Tia’s.

Tia paid no mind to the change in size of the beast but furrowed her brow when she realized its injuries had disappeared. ‘I need to finish this quick, my mana is running low.’ she thought to herself.

The two stood across a span of almost 20 feet and like a in an instant they leapt towards each other.

*CRACK*

Tia and the shampe were like statues in the park. Both were unmoving and silent. Alan edged closer to try and get gauge on the situation. The shampe’s arm was resting on Tia’s shoulder while Tia’s protruded from its back with visible ribs facing outwards. Alan hoped it was finished. This shit was way out of his league.

A flash a blue flame and the body of the monster was gone. Tia walked toward Alan’s hiding place while keeping her eyes trained away from him. She reached him and bent down to clasp his shoulder. Before Alan could say a word the world spun out of existence and he landed on his futon coughing from the smoke. His fit eventually stopped and he lay there breathing ragged. Tia bent down and touched her hand to his chest. The hand glowed slightly and her eyes teared up as she clutched her own chest in pain. Alan’s rough breathing stabilized and she fell to the ground. Eventually she gained enough strength to stand and she looked at the man sleeping on the bed. Tia smile with both satisfaction and sadness before she turned to leave.

“Wait!” Alan screamed in desperation. She stopped dead in her tracks, slightly shivering.

“Tia I’m sorry.” Alans head hung low as he struggled to sit up in bed. “I couldn’t get over the fact that you killed someone…no, some thing. I made you out to be some sort of lunatic in my mind and didn’t listen to you when you tried to reach out to me. I still don’t know what the fuck is going on but I know that you saved me. Please help me understand what happening!” He was practically begging.

“I need to see if there are any more in the area.” She refused to turn around or answer his questions.

Alan sat there and watched as she disappeared in a plume of smoke. He knew he was the cause of her lack of emotion. He thought about the debt he owed and how he treated her. ‘Fuck it, if I am going to accomplish anything in this life it will be me making it up to her.’ He pulled himself off the bed and walked towards the kitchen.

“Fuck….Me!” The searing pain in Alan’s toe reminded him of the mess he made earlier today. A book lay open at his aching foot and he picked it up. There was a piece of paper standing in the crease. ‘It’s probably about time to get rid of this’ He put the note from Ashley aside and went to close the book before he froze. He checked its title; Native American Folklore. He looked back to where the note was, and that’s where he saw it. Even though Alan had the book just for reference purposes he still knew the legend about the goddesses of death.

Tia, according to Haida legend, was the goddess of peaceful death. The Haida people are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest United States and represent one of the oldest areas of human occupation in the continent. The goddess would ease passage of the old and weary while also carrying the souls of the righteous to the other side. However her name was never spoken without mentioning Ta’xet in the same breath. This is because the goddess of death in Haida culture was a goddess of duality. Ta’xet represented the violent death. Evil beings and sinners would fear her name and knew that if they crossed her they would not have a complete corpse. Even having a complete soul would be a blessing when dealing with her.

Alan was a bit perplexed. He knew this should just be a coincidence but he also knew that he just saw things that were way beyond his comprehension. He decided to just put this in his back pocket until he saw Tia again.

. . . .

“Goddamnit!” Matthews slammed his fist completely through his desk. The pawn he lost today came at no small expense to him. It takes years to put enough negative energy into something to make a worthwhile tool. The tools he had to work with were few in number in his current situation. He certainly couldn’t ask for assistance or else he would alert his master that Tia was there. She needed to be caught by him. This was his opportunity to show his master that he was deserving of better, more important missions. ‘Let’s see how she reacts when I kill that little human piece of garbage.”