All of them waited for Baldric to continue as he threw more sticks onto the fire. As the sticks cracked under the heat, he took a deep breath.

"Sunshine... Skyguard was a hellish prison run by a very cruel and demonic woman named Gina Suvorian. The very same doctor who... experimented on you back in that warehouse."

Elizabeth touched her elbow, where the crazed doctor had drawn her blood with the monstrous machine.

"You know how when adults drink and they go on to tell secrets? Luna got drunk one time and she told me everything that doctor did to her and the other prisoners.

You see, Suvorian had a mission. To create a new weapon that would make humans into the perfect race. So she created a serum known as: Amber. It was designed so that those who drink it would heal from any injury, make them hit harder, move faster, and practically un-killable, but no matter what she did, it would not work. Any test subject she experimented on... they would die in a very gruesome manner.

Luna told me that day after day, the doctor called more and more prisoners for her serum to be tested on. And at night she would hear their cries of anguish and pain from every one of them. By morning they would be given shovels so that they would dig graves for the failed test subjects. With each failure, The doctor called for more, and finally it was Luna's turn. Everyone expected the serum to kill them all, but it didn't kill her. When Suvorian found out, she rejoiced at her breakthrough."

Baldric paused as he stared into the fire.

"Death would have been better than what they did to her."

He stopped again when the lump in his throat started to hurt.

"The doctor wanted to know why it worked on Luna and no one else, so she... opened her. They removed her organs, her bones, her blood and they did it while Luna was awake just so the doctor would hear her beg in agony. As long as she was being pumped with the amber she cannot die.

To the scientists in skyguard, this was invaluable. The heads of the facility, Doctor Pygmalion and Suvorian had the greatest test subject they could ask for. They could do anything to her. Anything.

Suvorian and all the scientists in that prison took everything from her. Everything that makes Luna... human. They gave her severe augmentations that no living creature could ever survive. They boiled her skin pale, they scoured her eyes white. They forced her to grow double organs only to be harvested, they brutalized her to the point she became something else... into an abomination."

Baldric hated that word, but he remembered Luna calling herself that, among other things.

"Then one day, Luna told me that someone had overdosed her on a new serum. It was venom, the serum that made her into an unthinking, murdering monstrosity. Remember back in the under empire? The yellow serum I injected her with? That was venom.

Because of the venom, she was able to break free from her chains, but the venom robbed her of her mind and sanity. It made her kill anything and everything in her path. By the time the venom's effects wore off, Luna discovered she had killed not just all the guards and scientists in Skyguard but her fellow prisoners and a town below it."

He paused as the lump in his throat was choking him. He wiped his eyes when Elizabeth spoke.

"Baldric is Skyguard… is that place where Katie and Stephen’s son was living in?"

He composed himself first before he continued.

"Yes, Elizabeth. It's the same."

Oichi, Annie, and Elizabeth watched as he wiped his eyes, but tears streaked down his face.

"When everyone came to lead a rescue against Skyguard, they found the entire town below it was wiped out." Oichi continued the story. "They went up to prison, and there in the middle, they found Luna. She was covered in blood, holding a large book, and sat there as she stared into nothing. When they asked her how long she was kept in that prison, Luna said it was only a couple of weeks, but in truth, she was tortured there for an entire year.

At first, they thought she was fine and they took her back to their hideout, but then over the next few days and weeks, everyone saw the damage done to her.

The torture broke her mind. She would yell out the names of the dead and herself until she was hoarse. She would harm herself so brutally that everyone had to restrain her. And when Luna saw Silvus enforcers or soldiers... she would go mad with rage that it would take everyone to just hold her down. But despite being so strong and suffering from her instability, Solomon told me, that deep down, Luna tried her best not to harm anyone. It was a sign that she was still in there."

Oichi smiled weakly as she looked at Elizabeth and Annie.

"Marko, Annie's big brother, was the one who suggested they take Luna east to get her the help she needed. If it wasn't for him, she would have possibly ended up in an asylum. They knew that more medicine or seeking help in hospitals would make Luna more unstable. Fortunately, at the same time, they met Luna's first martial arts teacher, Master Yhwago.

He told them that there was a way to help Luna and that was to bring her to Lepan to help her mind heal and rest. Everyone joined and escorted her halfway across the world until they reached the Toyde Monastery, the home of the warrior monks of Lepan, but more importantly, that's where I met everyone as well. I was a student under the monks, and I remember the day they brought in Luna. She wasn't anything like I had ever seen before.

Her eyes... Her incredibly pale eyes scared me at first. She was younger than me, but in her eyes it felt like she had already lived a long and painful life. It was horrifying to see her at first, but also miserable at the same time.

The monks did what they could to help her mind overcome the trauma of her experiences, and little by little, she started to regain her sanity. She also stopped answering to the name Elizabeth but rather to the name the monks gave her, Luna. Because her eyes and skin made her look like the moon.

The monks also taught everyone. They thought Beatrice and I how to heal; Solomon how to fight; Max and Marko how to wield swords. I remember Baldric being the absolutely worst student out of all of us." She said as she tried to lift his spirits. "Annie was only five at the time, but she was already better than him." Oichi winked at Elizabeth. He smiled as Annie shook her head.

"Soon the monk’s treatment finally paid off. Luna was resilient, and because of that and everyone's support, she soon managed to overcome her trauma. Not completely, mind you, but well enough for her to manage it. Two years had passed since they came into the monastery, and although we were all welcome to stay, everyone decided to go back to Aelmion.

Even through all the treatment, the anger in Luna never went away. She vowed to make them pay for what they did, and she decided to become a bounty hunter. So she can hunt those with information she could use to destroy Chimera. Naturally, we would not let her go alone, so all of us banded together to become a hunting guild. From then on, our adventures began. I was supposed to come home to Riyax, but I chose to stay with them. We had become like a family, and soon our guild began to grow and grow. We met Merlin, Captain Vhlad, Axe, Fletur, Grak, Doctor Gerwulf, Archibald, and The Tinkerton's, but our bond also grew in time.

Marko and Luna... they were inseparable, and even more so when they became a couple. Baldric and Beatrice were so sweet together that it was as though honey oozed from both of them. And Solomon and I became a couple as well. I remember the day Marko proposed to Luna." Oichi smiled. "It was the happiest day of her life. At the same time, our guild climbed up the ranks, and soon our guild, named Dominion, reached Shadow status."

"Baldric said Beatrice was his wife. What happened to her? And Marko?" Elizabeth asked, and suddenly the mood became grim. She looked at them all as though she had said something she shouldn't have.

"I'm sorry."

"No. no. it's alright." Baldric assured her. He looked at Annie, who nodded, signaling that it was okay to tell her what had happened to her brother.

"You see Sunshine, Bounty hunters, especially shadows have a lot of enemies and on our way to the top, we had tons of them. Other guilds despised us because we were so young and had attained shadow status before them. Groups of organized criminals who hated us for taking them down, religious zealots who blamed us for working with the enemies of the church, and corrupt government officials who got brought down by us, could not stand it, so they all banded together against us.

They named themselves the Olympians, and combining their strength and influence, they plotted to destroy not just the shadows but all of Llomeryn and its people. They started a bloody coup and it would be known as the Titanomachy, or the longest seven days of Ablan. Did Kinney ever tell you about that?"

Elizabeth shook her head.

"It's another story all on its own, but a lot of people died in that coup, and most of them were our friends. In the coup, our guild was betrayed and got caught in a trap. Everyone would have died had it not been for Marko. Luna and Marko acted as the rear-guard that day, but Luna got cornered and overwhelmed. He rushed in to save her, but the enemy reinforcements came."

Baldric paused.

"Marko gave his life for her to escape. When we returned to bring back his body, we found that they had taken it and, as a final insult, defiled it. The parts they left for us to find were almost unrecognizable. Everyone wanted revenge, but none more than Luna. She rallied every loyal hunter to war and on the seventh day the final battle happened inside the casino.

That night...that was the first time all of us saw the effects of the venom... On what type of monster she can be.

In the chaos, Luna took on the nine leaders of the Olympians. Tinkerton-C, an old friend of ours, was the only one who joined her on her assault. He told us that when they got cornered, Luna was almost killed and in a desperate attempt, Tinkerton-C resorted to drowning her with the venom.

By the end, when she sat on the throne in the casino surrounded with the corpses of the Olympians, all the remaining shadows granted her the title of the first shadow. The ruler of Ablan. The city was saved, and it owed her a debt that could never be repaid, but Luna... she was never the same.

She destroyed the secret Ablan monarchy and replaced it with the council. She even wanted to step down and quit being a bounty hunter altogether. Everyone respected her wishes, especially with what she lost. But rather than let her quit completely Vhlad and the other former shadows gave her the honorary role of being a permanent ghost member of its council.

We retrieved Marko's body and gave him a proper funeral, but soon it was time to decide who would be the new leader of the guild. At first it was supposed to be Solomon, but he saw that being a bounty hunter was not enough to make any change in the world. He left and founded the Syndicate to control the criminals and make sure they could never target innocent civilians ever again. With him gone, it was between Max, me and Luna. In the end, we voted that Luna should take the mantle of the guild leader.

We thought that when Marko died, that would be the end of our problems with the Olympians, but life just had to draw out one more card."

Oichi and Annie looked at him.

"A few of them managed to hide during Luna's rampage, and they, of course, plotted to take revenge. With what happened, they knew they could not take us head on, so they decided to do something more cowardly. They found out where Luna's house was and attacked it, but at the time, me, Beatrice, and our two children were living with Luna and Annie back then.

The three of us were out that night on an errand for my daughter’s birthday the next day, when the cowards barricaded the doors and windows from the outside and set fire to the house. We arrived in time to kill those animals. But it was… far too late to save them..."

Baldric covered his face with his hands as he tried to hide his crying face. Oichi gave him a hug. Once he had calmed down, he continued.

"Luna blamed herself… for what happened. She wanted me to blame her, but I never did. I love Luna. She is my sister, my best friend. She was more family to me than my parents ever were. I owe her everything. It wasn't her fault. But she took their deaths harder than Marko’s, especially with Bella and Bruno. She kept blaming herself and even knelt in front of me asking that I kill her. How could I even be angry at her? It wasn't her fault, but it didn't matter in her eyes.

At their funeral, Luna vowed to never kill again. She told me that her violence, her rage, caused it all. The cycle of killing and revenge ended their lives, and she got on her knees and promised on their graves that she would never kill anyone again."

He gazed at the fire, and then looked at the child.

"Elizabeth...

Luna... she is not a bad person. But what you saw was... inexcusable. You have every right to be wary and scared of her. But I want you to know that she was only human. A human who was flawed... a human who was forced to become a monster. But rather than let it destroy her, she used it to take down the real monsters when no one else could.

No one will ever force you to change your mind. But I just..." He let out a deep sigh that made him look far older than he should. "I just want you to understand that she acted that way because, in her mind, that is what she needed to do. To bring an end to her suffering and to get her peace. All of it was wrong, all of it. But I want you to know that good people, even the best, sometimes may do bad things. Because in their eyes, it may be the only choice they have left. I wish I could pay that price for her. She had already given everything."

He stared intently at the fire with a pained look, seemingly tormented by the flames. "But, I could never save the ones I love the most."

They sat around the campfire as they stared at the beautiful night sky by the shore. No one spoke as they watched the fire burn smaller and smaller, and when it had gone out, they started to make their way back with Elizabeth and Annie holding on to his hands. Later that night, Elizabeth slept in Oichi's room. As she cradled the child in her arms, Oichi noticed that for the first time in days, she did not have any nightmares.