It will take at least three more days before we reach Lucas at the relentless pace we are going. It would have been about a week's travel otherwise.

Assuming that they've not been reckless in travel as we are then that could mean that any event or trap that was in wait from there has been sprung roughly a day back. if they have traveled at the same pace as us, however...

Whether they are there or not, and whether they've walked into a trap. If a demon attack has indeed befallen the village of Lucas, then I worry about the state of its people.

Sophie - July 18th, 2764

Natalie

She descended through the caved-in floor of the lift shaft, her eyes followed the carnage to its origin. Her wings of night land her elegantly at the bottom of the makeshift tunnels. The fragments cracked rubble and rocks fell from the ends of the freshly broken hole like oversized water droplets. Walking through the lowest floors she locked eyes with the one shimmer of life still standing radiant within her purple angelic eyes. A lone armed man crushed under a cluster of stone and plaster.

Coming down the hall and the last corner that was between her and the man she was met with the sounds of groning pain and irregular breathing. The man now seeing Natalie come around the corner gritted his teeth at the sight of her. Natalie returned a cold and featureless glare back.

Their piercing death glare at each other was broken by the man violently coughing out blood declaring Natalie the victor. Chuckling in-between coughs the man sighed a surrendering breath to life itself.

"The one they lured, come to see little old me.” he smirked, ”So what? Are you here to save my soul?"

With her wings of black ink and otherworldly eyes of purple overshadowing him, weighing his worth in cold silence, it was hard to debunk his comment. With her head slightly tilted to one side and eyes narrowed Natalie kneeled down towards him studiedly.

"That depends on how you answer the question," She said carefully. "This tunnel, where does it go?"

The man chuckled again but this time under chattering teeth. More than half his body was under the rubble. His legs, waist, most of his gut, and right arm were all crushed. A stream of crimson oozed through the cracks of his rubble mattress.

"I’d rather die at the hands of treachery than be shown mercy by a rogue lab rat." The man spat defiantly.

"You will tell me what you know," Natalie said under tired lips.

"Or what? Will you kill me? A rather greedy though if you ask me. Given that I’m dying anyway."

Natalie's eyes fumed as she charged her hand up with a great electric pulse and hovered it over the man's head.

"If you're going to kill me then get on with it. I’m not going to beg from the likes of you," He pushed out of frail lips.

Natalie's hand remains frozen over the man's neck, conflict rages within her core. A small part of her wanted to end his life for his tenacity of taunting her in his feeble position but not before she squeezed what info he might have first.

"This is who the big wigs have been all flappy mouthed about? Some little girl?"

"I can fry your insides and leave you a molten skeleton. I’d be more compliant if I were you."

"'B67'... it’s what they called you, correct?"

Natalie's chest tightened from hearing that. A thick bottle of emotions began to crack within. The room rumbled by the thunderous sound of a storm outside the base. Her killing hand was poised to do its job but again she was held back by her want for information. Seeing that she was close to snapping the man chuckled in short pained breaths.

"Go on then, Do it! Smite me!"

Her mind tugged between prodding for answers and passing judgment she spaced out into the raging battle blazing in the core of her skull. Wracking her brains out for a way to make him talk all the whilst getting angrier with each passing second that came with nothing to show for. Her hair began to stand up from the static and steady climbing range of her powers, She looked like a true angel of death hovering the hand of ultimatum by her victim's face as her power climbed higher and inner turmoil sank deeper. Swirling further into anger she hears the two sides of her mind screaming at her in contradiction to one another.

She was so close, the place where they took the other children now an endless pile of rubble and refuse. She was once again too slow-once again just chasing the tail but never quite pinning the neck. She was too slow-too late, she’d been moments too late in acting when they faced off against a bounty hunter when saving their first child in Worrornce, she’d been days late when leaving the famished and desperate village of Sinidal… She’d been a year too late to reach her parents before they died.

With her lament altering the storms up above Natalie delved Deeper and deeper into the vast abyss of her mind until she heard it. A third voice whispering within her mind. So unlike the ones she calls her own, it had a similar sensation to the one she thought she heard when she passed out and fell into that strange, vague dream earlier but beyond that, it resembled nothing she sensed before. It did not have the same voice for one, The other thing was even though she made a mental effort to stop her current line of thoughts it still continued, saying things that were not even at the forefront of her own mind. It felt too unfamiliar, like touching an extra limb in the dark of a silent room. Taking a mental step back with a slow breath she calmed her rising panic and zoned in on this 'thought' to try and make sense of what it said.

"You're go--g to kill me either w-y -o I mig-t as well go wi-- s--e d---ity." It hollowed out in her mind.

Confusion hit her until she liked an apple on the head, that was until she came to and looked down at the crushed man in front of her. Her eyes widened in disbelief.

"Who goes there?" She thought to herself.

There was nobody else around her save for the crushed man and hollow empty halls. It was then when a crazy idea hit her. What if these thoughts did not come from her imaginings, what if these hidden thoughts in fact came from the very man she was leaning over. What if she was in fact reading his mind.

Now anyone else with any sense would have really double-checked themselves to see if they haven't suddenly jumped up a few spots on the crazy list. After all, to read the mind of another person was impossible. Sure there are people who joke about the blue phoenixes of the western temple being mastermind readers and using that to swindle men, women-even great leaders from their rights and wit hence their title manipulator but there had been insane rumors about the keepers of the west than there was worth counting.

Natalie knew that mind reading was not normal, but so was summoning wings to fly and see through walls. Natalie had seen the impossible upon herself since escaping the test tube those eight years back. And from freaking out at each new discovery, the wings when they shielded her from endless rain on the first night after escaping, the angel sight that activated in her sleep her thought at the time that she was going blind. And discovering that the constant rain that had been following her for the past thirty days was all her doing was something that both awed and frightened her for weeks. After all, she’d experienced the word ‘normal’ became meaningless to her. Uncertain of what she now was, and with no guidance or example of what she might become Natalie's definition of what’s possible loosened greatly. It was either that or losing her sanity.

Nowadays when a new and strange thing happened to her she paused, tried to understand it, and then once she did it was logged away in a mental box. A box of things that were impossible, things that can only be explained as the result of the angels' blood that they transplanted within her… things that made her abnormal, a creature, a freak.

Thanks to this instead of instantly doubting herself Natalie leaned closer to the broken man's uncertainty. Already desperate for answers, she studies his features but this time she tried her mental best to keep her mindset on the same desperate frequency. Years stuck with this power had helped her tease out any oddity she discovered about herself. No matter how strange and random each new oddity was at first there was always a logical and controllable way to repeat and/or stop it at will.

Her wings came out when she yearned for strength or protection, the eyes happened when she was dreaming of one day reaching her mother and father-that yearn to see the unseen triggered it, she was so homesick by that point that she was crying in her sleep when the strange sites she could see through her eyes shocked her awake. As for the rain and storms, they seemed to follow the ebb and flow of her heart. Unless tempered and controlled her heavens would reflect her mood.

The new power, the power to perhaps read minds must have been awakened by her will and want to pick his brain and pull what he knows about the ones in charge out of his skull. But why now? There have been many times where she’d love to know what someone was thinking these past eight years. That was a normal thing to wonder-at least prayed it was. The only answer she could come up with however was the void black dream and the voice she heard within it.

Something was changing within her, the freak creature they’ve altered her to was still evolving… it made her heartache. That ache she felt however became her tool. Just like all the odd abilities that don’t fit into the human, demon, or other categories combined she logged them and held them tight all in the hope of using them as a weapon to turn the people who have done this to her and others on their head.

Her one goal in life now was to gather all the bitter medicine that they dished her and feed it back to them with interest. For that reason alone she would willingly become a species beyond human comprehension.

"What did you say just now?" She said carefully. Eyes cold-calculating. Trying her best to discover and apply the new tool that she’d discovered.

Now it was his turn to look baffled.

"Had the experiments made your death as well as stupid!? I’m talking about the name they gave you? I heard that you've been all around trying the place to find us and take us down, but I'm not afraid of you! So go on, do what you came to do!!" he pushed out just before coughing heavily.

"After bein- ba-k st--bed by Da-n le- me a- le--- take this sec-et w--h me!" her mind ringed un-intently.

The words… or sensations were hard to make sense of. As if there was a net catching the whole meaning of them except that this one net had great big holes in them and some of the intent just slipped on though. Despite this, she was now more certain than ever that this was the prominent thoughts of this dying man before. No double about it, she was mind reading.

It was then that a crazy idea came to her. As she looked at the wall of rubble blocking her path she narrowed her eyes in yearful and rageful want.

"Just give me a name." She said, her gaze off to something beyond even her angelic sight. "Does this tunnel lead to Titans Creek?"

The bait was cast...

Unaware of this he mentally responded in kind.

"Why wou-d she say th-t out al--d?" His voice echoed out.

"What are you waiting for? Have you ever killed before? Well then get to it!" the man said between chattering teeth.

"And tho-e tunn--- d-n'- le-- to T---n's C--ek. It leads to b-se in A-u- f----."

Like the world was playing a twisted joke on her, the likely name that she wanted was the only one mental net missed the most meaning from. Being so close from getting what she wanted she opened her mouth in an attempt to strike twice but was stopped by the next thing that echoed through her mind.

"My bo-y is c--shed and -or so-e reason I'm n-- d-ad. It hur-s, I just wa-t the p--n to sto-. At l-ast g-ve m- that. L-t it end, let me die with dignity! His mind whimpered.

Natalie finally gaining insight into this man's wants glared at him astounded. Putting together all his intent behind his taunting, the poking of her past-the attempts to make her angry. She now knew what he wanted, what he wished for. Understanding this she gets up and walks away from him.

"H-hey! Where are you going?!" the crushed man said in a daze.

Natalie carried on walking without so much as a glance back. Seeing his only easy way out leaving he loses his front revealing his pained and desperate self.

"I'll tell you where this tunnel leads. I'll tell you anything you want! But please! Don't leave me here like this!" his frail breath and chattering teeth flood through the hollow halls like a tidal wave.

But Natalie did not react to his cries. His bargaining turned to beg, and begging finally turned to plead in question 'why, why won't you kill me?'.

But to her, it did not matter. If it meant giving scum like him even a slither of the pain she bore then Natalie would gladly lose the chance to get efficient information. The desperate cries of a dying man are drowned out by the footsteps of Natalie and the rumble of thunder. Her memory of his pleads faded faster than her growing distance between them.

Death comes to all of us, why help you meet it sooner? Why not suffer here for a bit longer? Like me... she lamented.

She paused her advance however when she noticed that she’d been walking towards nothing of importance, just a dead-end of the hall on the very bottom floor. Being too busy trying to crush the dying man's wish to notice sooner she sighed to herself at her lack of results to show for it all. Just a few intense glares, a reminder of her label… and another reason why she's a monster.

Though there may be some hope of deciphering the message. She will need to get a hand on a map first before she was even certain that was possible. With Andrew being the one carrying it she knew where her next stop should be.

It was then that her eyes widened, coming back to the current scenario.

"Andrew?" Natalie said to herself in a daze.

Turning around she searched the place with her purple eyes for the boy with that name.

Coming up blank she could only deduct that he had moved someplace too far for her to see from where she stood. Most likely pushed up their giants Nova Dawn. That or...

Finding the nearest flight of stairs she leaps up them three at a time, cursing her negligence. Praying that he and the children had not paid the price for her greed.