Sonya felt pain in her ankle and twisted off the blade to the side, pulling the man forward against his will and breaking the blade in two. The moment he lost balance, the scout jerked her leg free, jumping away from him just in time before his fist struck the ground, missing her head and tearing off flesh off her ear. The maniac’s arm went all the way to the elbow into the asphalt road, while Sonya jumped back from him, throwing the piece of broken blade at his head.

The steel shattered like glass against his helmet, and the road around him exploded upward, hiding the maniac behind the wall of fire and broken stone. Sonya used this moment to glance at her ankle. All skin around her ankle was bleeding, shaved away along with parts of her pants, sock, and boot. Fire? No, it would leave a burn. Grip? Also negative. It looks as if someone used several blades, but there is nothing of the sort on his palms. How did he do it then? She stopped looking at her bleeding leg, turning to face the man coming from the fire.

"Ain't a good idea to get on my bad side, filthy mute." The man spread his arms wide to the sides, his palms looking at Sonya. She saw a round circle on each of his palms, looking like a suction cup, with a tiny hole in the middle.

"From the looks of things, you don't have a good side." Sonya wiped the drool off her mouth, trembling with all her body. What is going on? Why is my body shaking? Is it fear? Me? Of this amateur? Dizziness fell on her, the man’s form shifted in and out of her focus, forcing the wolfkin to rely more on her ears and the tremors that he produced with each step to be aware of his location.

"Aw, don’t be so judgmental. I am quite popular with both genders." The man laughed, stopping two steps away from her.

Sonya smirked at him, beckoning him with an index finger: "What’s it gonna be, boy? If you fight me, you can’t kill civilians. If you try to kill civilians, I will kill you. Tsk, tsk, decisions, decisions. I suggest you just give up and stop this disappointment."

"Stupid whore," He laughed, "I can massacre the entire district while I am toying with you!"

The flame erupted from the holes in the weird suction cups on the man’s right palm, striking out in a thin line before expanding to the full length of a flamethrower. Sonya darted to the right, hearing the hissing of the flame against the stone behind her and ducking to evade the flame coming from his left palm. Idiot. She smiled, hearing how the flame harmlessly hit against the shield that protected the school. Any other place and she would have to take a risk to guard the civilians. Here, however? Eyesight or no, he was not a threat, not with all people outside of the line of immediate risk.

"Too bad, so sad…" Sonya mocked him, closing in on him, enraging the enemy just like Janine taught her, keeping his whole attention on her.

The man made a swing with his left arm, far too wide and far too strong. Sonya allowed the open to pass next to her face, timing the distance. Her left ear still exploded with pain while the hand passed next to it. Ignoring the pain and a wet feeling, the scout buried the claws of her right paw in the rear side of his side, circling him from the right. The scout expected to feel his insides with her claws and reach for his spine. Instead, her claws found only steel and wires, getting stuck in the increasingly thicker insides of his power armor. What is he, a cyborg? Sonya noticed his right palm looking at her from beneath his left armpit. Predictable. Before pulling her claws free, Sonya pulled herself with the claws, swinging her whole body behind him and allowing the flame to harmlessly hit the side of the bookstore.

"…but your free trial of life has finally expired. Please be a nicer person in the next life, ok?" This time she spread her arms wide, aiming for the sides of his helmet.

"Aren’t ya missing something, eh, genetic retard?" The man calmly asked.

Sonya’s eyes narrowed. She heard the sound of something… slithering across the ground, accompanied by an almost thundering slamming against the stone, with enough force to make her jump a little. She looked aside and saw a wall of utter darkness rising in the air around the place where the young man and his mother were. Sonya blinked, desperately trying to banish the blurriness, and saw that the wall was not solid. It looked like a countless forest of flower stalks came into being around the young man, standing close enough to appear as a solid wall. The color of these "flower stalks" was the same as fresh oil tar, they were as wide as a human torso and twitched in the air slightly while the young man pressed his hands against his temples.

A flash of light and the sound of cracking flame made the scout jump back when the foe before her unleashed a torrent of flame on the ground before himself. It split, like water, rising up and moving on all sides of him in an uneven circle, leaving him a black dot against a sea of raging flames.

One of the tendrils around the young man moved, cracking like a whip and slamming into the spot where the maniac stood, leaving a crack on his shoulder, while he rolled to the side, out of reach of the tendrils. This evasion seemingly enraged these strange things. They started hitting the ground around the young man, piercing the stone and trying to pull themselves closer to the terrorist. Sonya had to lean backward when one of the tendrils narrowly missed her snout.

"I planned to stage a little cute massacre here, but now I think that it is time to exit the stage and let others do the creator’s job!" The terrorist laughed, pushing both hands into the ground before him and exploding the part of the road, creating a two-meter-wide hole, "Have fun slaughtering each other!"

Sonya ignored him, dodging and evading the hits that the enraged "flower stalks" landed on the ground, madly trying to pull the young man after the escaped terrorist. Sonya had to block one of those weird tendrils with her leg before it could reduce an unconscious man on a road to a blood smear. The scout hissed, feeling how the cloth on her leg exploded from the hit, the weird tendril slid from her skin, causing another surge of pain due to rapid friction.

"No!" The young man shouted, hitting himself against the head again and again, "Dammit, no! It’s all my fault!" The tendrils stopped, no longer leaving the cracks against the road, instead lifting in the air, turning inwards and trembling over the youth, "Stupid, useless power, I took the pills today, I took them dammit!"

Sonya lunged at him, covering the distance in two great leaps, pushing through the forest of oiled tendrils just in time to take on her arm the strike of one of them, clenching her teeth and carefully grabbing the youth by the shoulders. Powers usually come in two forms. Active and passive. An active power is simple enough, you can conjure flame from your hands, or shapeshift, you wield it at will. A passive power was both simpler and trickier. You can't "turn it on and off" like active power. It generally worked on its own, following its own set of rules. For example, your power could make you stronger over time, like the power of the Wolf Tribe did, in reward for victories, bringing you to your peak. Or you can be born with flaming skin. Or worse. Through sheer training, a person could potentially turn passive power into semi-passive power, gaining some semblance of control through sheer willpower. But a single slip and all of this was undone.

"Get away from me, miss!" The youth screamed at her, trying to push her away. He might as well try to move the entire car with his frail body, while Sonya simply smiled at him, hiding her fangs and gently holding him, protecting him with her body. Now she saw. These tendrils were coming from his shadow, they had a radius of around five to seven meters. After all, he was indeed a wielder of a passive power, "These damn things hit everything that irritates me, and right now it's me!"

"Calm down, kid," Sonya smiled at him, feeling a hit against her back and a trickle of blood from sliced skin, "Your name is Surano, right?"

"How do you…?" He asked, his eyes rounding and tendrils stopping for a brief moment, "Nevermind that. Please get away from me before you get hurt. Miss, it’s all my fault! If I hadn’t failed this stupid exam, if I hadn’t fucked up enough to drag m…"

"Shhh… Calm down, kiddo," Sonya trembled, enduring hits against her head, shoulders, and the back of her legs. The dizziness and trembling disappeared from her, the eyesight came back, and the scout felt strong again. Her glasses nearly fell from the snout, and she chuckled, seeing the surprised face of Surano through one lens, "Feels like tickling. Your mom is very passionate. I overheard your name during my walk. Spirits my witness, Janine whipped my ass so much harder when I dared to mess up on the training. Don’t you worry, Surano, I can take this all day. Name’s Sonya, by the way."

"Miss, if you stay here…"

"Oh, please, relax already, kid!" Sonya laughed through pain, enduring whipping hit after whipping hit, feeling her skin peeling on the back. She wasn’t exactly lying, Janine did nearly skin her alive with a whip, but back then even the warlord understood that she went overboard, "Listen, you are young. And everyone messes up at that age. It’s i-ne-vi-ta-b-le. You failed an exam? Big fucking deal, just spend more time studying, sooner or later, you’ll get it done. Life ain’t a race and you certainly don’t deserve a beating for it. Look at my face, breathe slowly and calm down. I’ll keep you safe as long as it takes, so take your time, don’t rush it."

But I would appreciate it if you could hurry. Sonya thought when another hit threw the glasses off her. Surprisingly, she still saw Surano’s face. His skin bore heavy signs of tanning, his hair was the same color as his mother’s. His black eyes betrayed panic, and Sonya simply kept smiling to him, not allowing the youth any other choice but to close his eyes and allow his arms to fall. He took a deep breath, then another, as the tendrils around them shrank and vanished, along with his frustration, fear, and hatred for himself. 

"That’s it, Surano, you are getting there. No fuss is ever worth hurting yourself over, right?" Sonya let go of him, taking a step back, while Surano’s shadow became normal. The tendrils disappeared, granting one last hit against the scout's body, a hit that felt more like a slap at best.

Sonya looked at the street. Everywhere she saw, the people were slowly waking up, some were busy helping others who lay face down in a pool of vomit, others phoned someone quickly, and a few simply sat, grasping their trembling knees. The wolfkin could hear the working sirens, indicating that police were hurrying here. It was hard to believe that the whole scuffle took less than eight minutes to resolve.

The scout briefly looked at herself. She could not see her back, but she felt her own flesh hanging, the naked meat sent pulses of new pain with each movement. Sonya resisted the urge to rip the flesh from her back, instead looking down at her arms and frowning at the damned cool weather. The skin on her arms became swollen, changing color to purple. Whip-like hits of the tendrils ruined her fur in more than one place. She touched her ear and felt that half of it was gone, almost eaten away. Damn it, he didn’t even touch me! How in… No matter, question for later. But, in general, nothing is irreversible, except...

Abyss take it!

Sonya picked up her glasses, putting them back on and feeling her heart fall, seeing the scorched remains of her backpack and books. She could recover her documents, and recovering access to money was no biggie either, but the books…

Calm down. You helped people, this is what a good person does. Maybe you can buy new ones. Maybe the author will be willing to… She heard a sound in the air and turned around to see a dot in the distance. The dot that was rapidly getting closer to them.

"Thank you, Sonya. And sorry for…" The youth stopped after Sonya patted him on the shoulder, with a bit more force than she intended. The pain messed with her senses, and the youth, still shaken from the recent event, sat on the ground.

"My bad," Sonya took off the remains of her jacket, tearing it to make bandages to stop her bleeding, "You know what this thing in the sky is?"

"Anyone ever told you that you are freakishly strong, miss?" Surano let out a laugh, standing up and throwing dust off his uniform. He stopped, noticing a few drops of Sonya’s blood on his uniform, "This is just an archangel... Wait, I need to check my mom!"

Archangel? What is this supposed to be?

"Help! Police! This person assaulted my son!" Sonya turned her head to see Surano’s mother standing up on one elbow, her eyes still clouded from being unconscious, and the woman apparently saw splashes of Sonya’s blood on Surano or saw how Sonya accidently made him fall. The scout lifted a finger, trying to come up with words to explain the situation.

The words failed to leave her mouth. Instead, all the air from her lungs was pushed through of her mouth, and her body flew backwards, being pushed by someone. She briefly saw a steel head made in the form of a human head, the blue lenses that replaced the eyes of this strange person looked at her like twin shining stars. Two steel arms were pushed into her chest, crashing her body against a force shield that surrounded the school and making her choke for air, while a man made of steel landed before her.

It was not power armor, or at least it was too small to be one. She could see wires connecting the upper parts of the legs to the lower part, hidden safely behind the sturdy looking armored glass that protected the joints of the steel body. The body bore no paint, safe for one golden star in the middle of the chest, two long steel wings were behind the strange person. He moved with the grace of a fighter, producing no sound while a long steel needle came from his elegant looking hand. The scout fell on her knees, trying to get a breath in.

Mommy, I don’t want to be in Iterna no more. Can I go home to daddy now… Sonya managed to think when the "archangel" moved towards her with human fluidity, plunging the needle into her body with the effectiveness and precision of a machine, filling her bloodstream with a fast-working sedative.