** Rosa **

Amelia and I ran hard in the direction of the war front after our hit and run. The forest was so outstandingly bland and uniform as we made our way between it’s boughs, that if not for my companion’s excellent senses, we would have surely run in circles. As it stood, with the perpetually overcast sky and unending rolling hills of this region, I was hard pressed to find my way anywhere. This, along with the reliable landmark that had been the old front line now gone, meant that my sense of direction was utterly hopeless.

“We have people incoming from thataway,” Amelia told me in a hushed voice as we crouched in the snow to catch our breath.

“How do you know? I see nothing?” I asked, genuinely impressed with her abilities. “Not that I doubt you of course, but… I am curious.”

“Do you hear the wolves howling?” she asked, her entrancing burgundy eyes finding mine through the light snowfall that was fluttering down around us. She looked exceptionally pretty with the flakes sprinkled through her hair like that.

“I do,” I nodded simply, pushing thoughts of my companion’s beauty out of my mind with an effort of will.

“They’re communicating, there’s two packs I think, or two halves of one pack. They’re warning each other about a potential threat and keeping track of it,” she said, her eyes going someplace else for a moment. A memory?

“That’s… impressive,” I murmured, wondering for a moment how she’d picked up that skill, and now that I thought about it, all the others too.

She just shrugged at my praise, “Training. They teach you a lot of things in my old… job.”

It was obvious that she wasn’t comfortable discussing her old job, so I let the matter rest, instead asking after a plan.

“What do you suggest we do to deal with them? They’re cutting us off from my camp, if I my sense of direction hasn’t completely failed me,” I asked, scanning her face intently.

She had a face that was very easy to watch, and I’d found myself doing just that on several occasions since we’d become unofficial adventuring companions. There was something about the way her face constantly shifted between emotions, each one worn proud and transparently. It was a breath of fresh air after the false smiles and hateful eyes of the people I had known previously.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, giving me a sheepish smile. “I’m not the most incredible tactician that you’ll ever meet. Barely top ten really.”

“Ah,” I nodded, feeling a smile tug at my lips like a child tugging insistently at her mother’s dress.

I allowed this one to pass, and began to think on the problem. Currently, we were moving north east, with the bulk of the Steel Giants behind us. My camp was now south of us, and the new group of enemies was coming from the east. We’d be intercepted if we made for my camp, and intercepted if we made straight for the front lines. Which gave us the north west as our only option if we hoped to outrun both groups.

Alternatively…

“What do you say we smash through this approaching group?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I mean, if you’re confident, I’m cool with whatever,” she grinned.

I struggled with another rebellious smile as I turned my eyes in the direction of our new foes, “It’s settled then? We go through them?”

“Fuck yeah,” she nodded enthusiastically.

So we continued on our course until we sighted our attackers. This group was different to the Steel Giants behind us, and as they spotted us and moved in through the snow and pines to attack, I turned to Amelia with a question in my eyes.

“Fear Gang,” she said with an eye roll and a derisive sigh. “Another Pag guild, but this lot are smaller and have better players. They’re all assholes too, getting really into the racism thing on the forums. Steel Giants have a few people I could dredge up some respect for if I was hard pressed, but these guys… nope.”

“Then I will make their deaths just that much more painful,” I said with satisfaction. Some might judge me for my wanton killing of anyone who crossed my path, despite what Amelia said, but I doubted anyone worth trading words with would mind if I killed this guild.

Amelia reacted to my words with a wholly different reaction than I’d been expecting. I’d thought she might have found my words fearful or some such thing, but no. She licked her lips, and that delightful scent returned. I was beginning to have an idea of what it might be, but… surely not? Surely someone like her would not find someone like me attractive?

“Right... well, that one there is getting pretty cocky,” Amelia laughed awkwardly, looking back at the hostile players.

As she spoke, she unlimbered the enormous gun that she affectionately and incomprehensibly called Jazz. The man she’d indicated was using some sort of Pagutum made device that allowed him to make short skimming hops across the snow. Not unlike Amelia herself actually, when she was really making speed.

I watched her carefully take aim with curiosity. She was a professional at this, her stance and grip on the weapon speaking of experience far beyond that which one would pick up in a few short months playing this game. Then with the pull of the trigger, a bolt of sizzling blue energy hissed from the barrel to strike the man directly in the chest. Before he could do mroe than stagger under the blow, another bolt quickly followed, this time hitting the device he’d been using.

His destruction was immediate and total, the device exploding the exact moment the bolt landed home, and he was torn apart in a spray of blood and violent, unrestrained magical energy. His companions slowed for a moment after that, as the shock of Amelia’s first strike hit them. It did not appear that these people were used to losing one of their members so quickly.

“Right, well I think that checked their enthusiasm a little,” she chuckled, standing up again and leaning her weapon on her shoulder. “I guess it’s time to run through them now?”

“Let’s do it,” I nodded, stepping forward.

We rushed them, two versus at least thirty on their side, brazen as Nuna the horse as she tried to steal more than her share of the hay that Tim laid out in the paddock. When I got within range of the first couple of enemies, I spun and lashed out with a chain that was still forming in my fist.

The woman I’d been aiming for raised a shield and blocked the attack, then pointed her sword at me and let a spell loose. I twisted slightly to the side, allowing it to flicker harmlessly past me. My next attack was an overhanded haymaker, the chain arcing down from high in the air. She raised her shield to block that blow too, but failed to realise where the crescent blade would fall.

As the chain landed on her raised shield, the crescent blade landed slightly beyond, flicking down and behind her to strike her in her exposed back. The woman staggered, her eyes wide with fear and surprise… but only for a moment. With her guard down, my other blade lashed out to take her in the neck.

Then Amelia was next to me, her gun raised and firing, taking the second of the pair in the chest with a beam of light that punched a hole straight through. With her overly flashy blow struck gorgeous woman turned and winked at me. Winked!

“Gun beats blade, huh?” she teased, then turned her attention back to dealing death.

“We’ll see about that,” I growled, rushing forward to throw another of my chains at the enemy.

Except instead, I staggered to a stop and looked down at the two bodies next to me. What was this feeling? It was another instinct, but this one was new. Had I finally gained a new ability?

I followed the new instinct down, my hand turning back into mist before I plunged it into the chest of the woman that I’d killed. I grasped something within the body, an essence, some spark of potential. With an effort of will, I pulled on it. It resisted, squirming and struggling with all of its might, but I clamped down with my mind. It gave up in just a moment of mental combat, and I pulled it up and out of the body.

Smoke billowed up out of the corpse in a rush, forming into a ghostly replica of the woman I had just killed. Oh no, had I just forced this player back to do my bidding? What had I just done? I scrutinised the form before me with worry, but then I saw something I had definitely not expected. This thing was like me. I had pulled it from the chaos of the void and given it this form to use.

“Go,” I said quietly, motioning towards our foes. “Kill them.”

And so it did, rushing forward with terrible speed to bring it’s ghostly sword to bear. It was single minded in its attack, stabbing and cutting with the sword and ignoring the fact it also held a shield, but it was better than nothing I supposed.

“Wow, alright… I’ve never seen you do that,” Amelia remarked from next to me.

“I’ve never done it before,” I told her, and with a sudden realisation, I realised just how much energy that had used.

Since my time with Amelia, I’d been able to store up far more energy than at any other point since I’d spawned. She was an endless font of the unique energy I needed to both live and use my abilities. Watching her now, I realised I had been going about this all wrong. Fear and anger were nothing compared to the wealth of emotion that this woman felt.

“Well, keep doing it!” she grinned. “It’s evening the odds!”

“It takes a lot of energy,” I said, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t be able to— “

“Kiss me then,” she blurted, and I felt that same scent that always did so much for my fuel reserves. So I’d been right then, the emotion she was feeling was attraction.

Moving forward and making a quick glance around us to be sure that they were occupied with my recently risen simulacrum of their fallen comrade, I scrutinised my friend. She looked ready, eager and nervous.

I felt anxiety rise up within me almost as soon as I got within her space, my clammy hand moving to rest nervously on her hip. She gave me a wide eyed smile as I moved in, the taste of her emotions already potent and alluring, just as she was. She was an exceptionally good looking girl, she’d done well with her character, and I found my heart and core reacting to that with hammering beats and smouldering warmth.

Swallowing my nervousness and leaning in further still, my lips drawing ever closer to hers, I fought my rising anxiety. She had invited this, asked for it. It was okay to be intimate with her, for the sake of getting her home. I had dropped both my chains now, my remaining hand coming to rest on her waist, the softness there sending my heartrate to further heights. I think I was getting red in the face too, because otherwise I suspected I had come down with a flash fever.

She was looking at me too, her eyes filled with a breathless anticipation that made me just that much more insecure. I didn’t do this type of thing, this wasn’t…. How do you even go about kissing people? How did this work? Did I just lean forward and place my lips to her beautifully curved ones?

Maybe if I stroked her cheek as I had done earlier, when I had lost myself in her eyes and come out of it in a panic. I decided to try that, reaching up to cup that infinitely soft cheek with my anxiously shaking hand.

No, I couldn’t!

I pushed myself away from her. No, this was too much, it was too much. I couldn’t just… touch people, not after everything. Especially not in such an intimate way as this. A kiss? Really? What had she been thinking? I couldn’t kiss her! I had barely any experience with romance and sex as it was. To go up and just… no!

“I can’t,” I whispered, my voice sounding far too vulnerable for my liking. “It’s too hard, I have no… I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“That’s fine Witch,” she smiled gently, giving my arm a soft, comforting touch. Then sheepishly she added, “Plus, I imagine you probably got quite a lot out of me there as it was.”

I frowned as she said it, and looked within myself to find that she was actually correct. I had more than enough energy to raise a few more smoke creatures for our cause.

“You’re right,” I said in surprise, my anxiety fading with her words and the realisation I hadn’t needed to kiss her at all.

“Then let’s go kill the rest of them,” she grinned, nodding a head in the direction of the now regrouping enemy guild.

“Yes, let’s do that,” I smiled, thankful to have something to distract myself from what had just happened.

Without waiting for me to get involved again, Amelia hefted that gun of hers back into position and casually popped off a shot or three. If she was going to step right back into it like nothing had happened, then so could I, and collecting my will I reached down towards the other dead players next to us.