The dark of night was thick when Azela left the library. Stars and moon were covered with passing clouds. In this area of Jastria the streets had been paved long ago, but decades of erosion and neglect left them fractured. It gave them the quality of seeming both newer and older than the rest of the haven. Like the library and Shi-Yon's tower, it was a reminder of bygone times.
With the huts quiet, the only sound came from her footsteps echoing through the sleeping village. To drown out the silence, she hummed a song whose words she couldn't recall.
Lost in a daydream of what her past life could've been like, she mistook the second set of steps behind her as echoes of her own.
Suddenly, a thin hand reached around her face and covered her mouth.
The cold blade of a knife pushed against her throat.
She struggled for a second, but stopped as the knife-edge pressed harder. One quick movement and her life would end there on the street. Azela could hear the heavy breathing of a man behind her.
The knife-wielder moved his mouth to Azela's ear and said, "C'mere, little pup. Lord Vane sent us a long way to find his lost toy and make sure no one else could play with it, but you keep quiet and follow like a good dog, maybe we can strike a deal. Easy now. Just come with me."
Azela held her breath as the stranger pulled her into a narrow, filth-covered alley. There waited another man, this one both taller and wider than the first. She was pushed toward him, and her balance failed. Her body twisted and she landed hard on her back, her skull hitting the asphalt. A moment of disorientation prevented her from moving before the man in the alley knelt down and pinned her arms above her head. She felt the other crawl on top of her and lick her cheek with his grimy tongue. The pungent breath made her eyes water. He pressed the knife against her throat again.
"I can't believe how dumb you things are," said the thinner man. "The fabled lost village of Jastria is supposed to be death to any sapien that enters, and yet we've been wandering this shithole for hours and no one looks at us twice. People are afraid that you animals can walk among us, and here we are walking among you."
Unconsciously scraping the blade against her throat, the man straddling her moved his face down to her left shoulder and bit the tight cloth with his gritty teeth. Her skin crawled, but with his knife where it was, she didn't dare move. With a jerk of his neck he yanked the left half of her outfit free from her breast. His movement caused the blade to slightly slice enough to sting, but not enough to bleed.
"Quit your squirming or I'll quit it for you," he threatened. "We're just checking how similar you are to an actual girl, but we can just cut you up instead to see how good the meat is. Relax and enjoy the chance to have a real man and not one of these man-shaped fakes." Then he reached down, and she could hear him unfastening his belt.
Azela closed her eyes tightly. She felt a sudden jolt in the man's body. Then a warm liquid poured down on her.
Her eyes opened cautiously, revealing the liquid on her chest as a puddle of dark blood.
The man's head slid from the now mostly detached neck, a confused expression still frozen on his face. His body fell limp. A scarred woman stood behind it, holding her enormous sword fervently.
The other man jumped up and ran but the woman was instantly on him. With a horrified scream he fell to the ground in two pieces. Even in the darkness Azela noticed something odd about her weapon. The glittering blood that remained on its blade seemed to evaporate, as if it were sucked into the metal.
Turning toward Azela, the woman walked over and kicked the nearly decapitated corpse off of her. The relief she felt was short lived. Azela was about to thank her but fell silent as the stranger swung a leg over her and pointed the sword between Azela's breasts.
She stood over Azela, staring down at her with eyes as ravenous as the man she had just killed, and whispered something that didn't sound like words.
A voice in the distance startled her. "Over there, that's where I heard the scream," it said.
The woman's attention shifted back to Azela, and looked as if she were seeing the shattered remains of something irreplaceable. With gentle hands, she reached down to fix Azela's disheveled attire, her touch lingering briefly before she straightened up. The closeness brought forth the shadow of a memory. Azela knew that she had seen this woman before, but not where.
The stranger's expression was like that of someone waking from a dream, unsure of what was real. Without pausing to sheathe her sword, the woman abruptly dashed toward the back of the alley, scaling the fence with a grace that spoke of practiced agility.
The suddenness of her departure left Azela bewildered.
Seconds seemed like minutes as Azela stood up, trembling. Four glitchen ran into the alley, two holding lanterns that illuminated the grisly scene. Together they gasped at the bloody mess. One turned aside and fought back vomit. Another pulled his sai from its holster. "In Jaiysaun's name..." he said, "What did you do to them?"
Azela glanced at the blood that covered her, then began to explain, "No, it wasn't—" A cold, metallic arm reached around her neck. Her face was forced upward as she was lifted above the ground, allowing her to see Shi-Yon standing behind her.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, then shouted to the others, "Gather everyone you can in case this demon overpowers me. It might take everything we have, but we must kill it immediately."
Azela instantly felt a deep pain, both physical and emotional, as Shi-Yon's arm constricted around her neck. His hold gripped her like a noose. It wasn't me, she wanted to say, I didn't kill anybody. But all she could get out was an almost inaudible whine. She squirmed frantically, unable to twist around or break free. Please, please, I can't breathe! Consciousness began to slip away. Her hands grasped Shi-Yon's powerful arm and pulled uselessly. He squeezed tighter.
"Don't struggle," the knight said softly to her, "I'll make this quick. It was wrong for Ayan to bring you back. He should've listened to me. I knew that you'd revert to your primal nature."
Sharp pains stabbed from within her skull as she began to black out.
"I truly am sorry," he continued, "When I stole you from him and put you underwater, I didn't expect that you would wake before drowning, or that anyone would find you. But somehow he knew exactly where you were. He stopped me then, but he isn't here to stop me now. When he brought you into the haven, this end was inevitable."
But it wasn't me, she thought. With a surge of desperation, Azela's fingers found purchase on a crevice in Shi-Yon's gauntlet. She felt something rise up inside of her out of desperation. Two of her fingers managed to keep hold over the gap and she exerted all her strength, feeling the metal of the armor yield beneath her grasp. A section of the armor plate loosened, giving her just enough room to pull herself free.
Azela slipped out and refilled her lungs rapidly with short gasps. Her heart pounded painfully. Before Shi-Yon had a chance to grab on again, she sped to the back of the alley. Fear had overtaken her, replacing thought with instinct. She vaulted over the fence that the woman had climbed, her feet carrying her swiftly across the yard beyond to find another street. From there she ran across other properties at a speed that turned them into a blur, running in every direction but the one she came from. Her only desire was to get away.
Glitchen could be heard everywhere. Doors opened. Crowds assembled. Someone was shouting, "Wake up! A demon is attacking! Everyone to arms!" Hut lights and torches soon lit up the streets. Several footsteps rumbled ominously over pavement. One crowd was coming her way. She dove behind a corner as they rushed past, and shuddered when she saw the weapons they carried.
"She wears a violet-tinted red outfit with dark hair and pale skin, and is covered in blood," described one of them.
Tinted? she thought, and examined the fabric of her clothes. Sure enough, what she could have sworn was a solid color now had a bluish hue that seemed to be creeping in from the edges. She put this mystery aside for now to focus on her immediate problems.
After a few seconds she crept out of her hiding place and ran through the haven, traveling different streets at random, unaware of where she could escape to. If Shi-Yon wouldn't listen, no one would.
Then she remembered the cyborg. MegaGlitch would know she was innocent. He would know by reading her mind that she wasn't a killer, and that the dead weren't even from Jastria. But the tavern was probably closed by now, and she had no idea where he lived. Her only choice was to hide until morning.
Eventually she stumbled across a building that was much less maintained than any other she had seen. Unlike most, this one was made of wood. The worn door was ajar and as she risked stepping up to open it, the door came loose from its hinges and fell inward. There was no sign of furniture or occupants. Another door in the back seemed to lead outside. The sounds of several people came from some distance beyond it, but there were no windows for anyone to see in.
She didn't make it far inside before collapsing into a flood of tears on the moldy floorboards. Everything had happened so fast, as if it wasn't real, but the pain remaining from Shi-Yon's chokehold was much, much too real.
But I didn't do anything wrong.
The thought repeated in her mind, almost drowning out the shouts from the streets around her. They called for blood. She was being hunted.
The squeak of a rat made her jump up, but when she saw the little rodent she laughed hysterically. It turned its head sideways and gave a look of confusion. Azela reached out, and the rat didn't seem afraid, so she stroked its furry head. Its tail flicked in appreciation. "You don't think I'm a killer, do you?" she asked. Her heart froze as she thought of her missing past. Shi-Yon's words were still fresh in her memory:
I knew that you'd revert to your primal nature.
Then the back door smashed open. Azela crawled into a corner as the mob clamored inside from both entrances. Her pleas were lost in their shouting.
She tried to push past them but was stricken with a hard club-like object that left her stunned and on the floor. All she could do was curl into a defensive ball as a few joined in to strike her with blunt weapons. A rusty pitchfork scraped against her leg. Demon, she thought through the pain. They called her demon. Was that what she really was?
They stopped when they realized she wasn't moving. Azela was too panic-stricken to hear their plan to burn the building down while she was trapped. They gathered outside, leaving Azela bruised and bleeding.
Most of their torches remained, laid out in various places.
Smoke and heat began to fill the room, making her cough uncontrollably. Soon, the flames danced and weaved a circle around her.
They waved closer, closer, closer.
As her mind snapped, her body felt heavy. She fell into herself, the world around her receding into oblivion.
As the flames licked hungrily at the wooden walls, threatening to engulf her in their fiery embrace, Azela's senses were suddenly jolted back to reality by a terrified squeak. In the corner with her, the rat cowered, pawing against the wood futilely. The fire ate away the wall to her right, and Azela pulled herself back into reality. She scooped up the frightened creature and held it close, feeling the rapid beat of its heart against her palm. With a surge of adrenaline, she pushed herself to her feet and dove through the hole that the flames left, ignoring the heat and the pain. Three glitchen ran to stop her, but panic gave her the speed to reach a thin gap through the two closest huts. Azela's small frame saw her swiftly through, while the mob was significantly slower. A few struggled to squeeze through single-file while smarter glitchen decided to take the longer path around.
The terrified rat bit her hand and she let it go. After climbing desperately over two fences, she felt exhaustion consume her.
She tripped and fell to the ground, her chest heaving with exertion as she stared up at the night sky. They wouldn't listen, not that it mattered. Why listen to a demon? She was an impostor. A monster in the form of a glitch. Shi-Yon was the only one that she trusted, and if he believed that she was too dangerous to let live, then perhaps she was.
Beside her came the ancient, merciless roar of an engine. "Get up!" said a familiar voice. "I said, get up! Come on!"
Azela sat up to see the smelly man from the tavern, the one MegaGlitch called Five, on the back of a motorcycle. "Wha... is that?" she wondered at the bike.
"Get up here!" he yelled, "Ya gotta trust me!"
Azela reluctantly pulled herself onto the seat behind him, and held on tightly as they sped down the road.
As they moved faster than Azela thought possible, she looked behind for signs of the mob. Instead, she noticed something odd in the sky. A red shape appeared to be following them. Incredibly, it seemed to be moving faster than Five's machine. It wasn't long before she could see that the shape was a pair of wings, attached to a man with spiky red hair. Azela found it hard to believe what she saw, but there it was. High above the streets of Jastria flew a man with red wings. There was something familiar and somewhat nostalgic about the sight of a man soaring like an eagle.
After some time, he caught up with the speeding motorcycle and lowered himself next to it, somehow keeping up despite only gliding. To Azela it seemed as if he were somehow falling toward the bike instead of the ground. Shouting over the motor and the wind, the man asked, "Five! Why am I not surprised to see a mob chasing after you?"
Five seemed significantly less shocked than Azela to see him. He shouted back, "Lance! What in Hell's maw are you doing here?"
He answered, "I was on my way to the coast and saw the haven as bright as a festival night. Tried to decipher as much as I could from the noise. Something about a demon?"
Without taking his eyes off the road, Five replied, "Lance! Do me a favor and I'll buy ya a pint."
"What's that?"
Five pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "Throw those guys off of my tail so they don't realize that I took their prize."
Lance glanced at the young girl sitting behind him. "Is she the demon? Awfully pretty," he said with a smile, "A lecher like you had better hope the princess doesn't get jealous."
Azela couldn't say anything. She was desperately trying to pull whatever scraps she could from the depths of her memory. She had finally felt something she could tug at, but like a forgotten dream, it slipped from her grasp.
Five said, "She ain't no demon, but there ain't no use in explaining it while they're riled."
"I know a few tricks that can lead them away easily enough, but you owe me more than just some beer." Lance smiled again. "Make it some of MegaGlitch's finest vintage."
"Whatever. Just get moving!" Five yelled.
Lance slowed, seeming to let go of whatever force had pulled him toward the bike to let them pass.
Azela's weariness came back in force, and she began once more to drift out of consciousness.
TFTC