Writing Forever

   He stared at her retreating back until she'd seemingly vanished, without warning like a gust of cold wind in the middle of summer, into the swelling crowd of people. He pondered on whether he would ever be able to see her again. He hoped that he would see her in the same exact place. In fact, he'd like to exchange words with her, but wishing was certainly a far thing from actually doing. He wanted to wait until he was properly ready. Rushing in unprepared and half-baked would only cause serious damage to his painfully slim chances as they were. Back in the day, he had always been the guy who followed rather than led. He didn't have the bravado necessary to walk right up to a girl you noticed for the very first time and start complimenting her on how beautiful she was and how perfect her smile looked. It wasn't what he was like, at all.

   He could easily have waited around outside to see when the girl would come by again, but the inevitable pangs of hunger demanded he give them his foremost attention. Retreating himself back into the mall, he could only hope he would see that girl again and very soon too. Her smile had done something to him. It made him want to act, when he'd always been so afraid to act before.    He was starting to convince himself that that placid wave she'd given him was actually a gesture beckoning him to come over. Maybe she wanted to speak to him as much as he wanted to speak to her, but she was just too shy to make the first approach, like he was.    He often spent a lot of time wandering aimlessly through the many floors of this particular mall, at least when it was during the appropriate hours. It wasn't as crowded as it used to be, which was likely due to so many of the popular shops having closed down, but he didn't quite mind it anyway, since it meant a lot more room for him to do what he wanted. If it wasn't the food court or the electronics corner that he frequented, then he would work at breaking in all of the different beds on display in the furniture stores. However, not even the insanely mind-numbing comfort of a double-layered, down-feather queen-sized bed could make him forget about her and that smile of hers.    He wanted to try and find her once more, but he still needed to get something to eat. He'd almost forgotten to do that. His mind had a tendency to wander now and then.    He helped himself to some of the candy in the vending machine. The mall personnel been lax in replacing the snacks too; not only were some of the slots still empty after all this time, but the candy that remained had begun to taste a little on the stale side. He ate what was there, because he did not wish to waste anything. He washed down the marginally-stale trail mix and rock-hard M&M chocolates with a cup of water straight from the coin fountain. He'd spent the past two days counting the vast number of pennies, dimes and quarters that had been thrown into the fountain. Surely, if he'd gathered them all, he'd have himself quite a nice pile of change, maybe ten dollars or more. Yet he wouldn't do something like that, because he didn't want to tamper with other peoples' wishes.

   Now that he was both well-rested and well-fed, he stepped outside the mall to try and find the girl again. He peered through the chain link fence. If he could catch a hint of her fiery-crimson hair or that angelic smile of hers, he would know that it was the one that he was looking for. Unfortunately, the crowd outside had gotten rather dense recently; he would need to get to higher ground to see over so many heads. He borrowed a ladder from a nearby janitorial closet; he even left a brief scribbled note saying that he would bring it right back. Climbing on top of the ladder, he looked out over the top of the fence. The sun was beginning to set, the temperatures taking a dip along with it. The sky had become colored with a beautiful hue of orange. Unfortunately, he could not see her. He thought he spotted her presence, several times in fact, but those who possessed her red hair never turned around for him to make confirmation. When it became apparent that he was earning himself many odd looks from down below, he decided to retreat. He'd come back to find her tomorrow morning. The sky filled with a scattering of stars as he reentered the mall.

   He wrapped his arms around his chest as the chilled air nipped away at him, especially at his ears and face. The mall's back-up generator worked just fine, but the night winds still managed to get inside and plague him. Crickets' chirping filled the otherwise lonely and empty silence of the mall. He carefully stepped over the many piles of broken, shattered glass lying on the ground. He could feel the glass shift and crack beneath the weight of his boots. He hated the sound of it so much. Maybe the reason everyone stopped coming to this mall wasn't because of the lack of stores, but because of the abysmal conditions that the management had kept it in.    He was feeling pretty bad about not finding her smile before it got dark so he decided to treat himself to some ice cream at the food court. He moved straight to the front of line before he knew it. He was able to pick any flavor he wanted, although yet again, anything that had been taken out before hadn't been restocked. He took both vanilla and chocolate and threw the scoops on top of each other. He wasn't very fond of strawberry, so he never touched Neapolitan. He felt like it 'contaminated' the other two flavors. Before walking out of the food court, he rushed back to the counter and left the appropriate amount of change.

   He tried to sleep that night on the down-feather bed, but he couldn't it. That girl's smile plagued all of his thoughts, like the most wonderful curse imaginable. Every time he tried to fall asleep, he saw the glazed white marbles of her eyes staring right back at him. It made his heart ache for her so badly. There was something about her that he couldn't quite put, but it was drawing him in. This wasn't a crush anymore, it was turning into an obsession, and so quickly too.    When morning did finally come, he wasted no time in stopping for breakfast. He broke apart some slices of old bread and scattered the pieces around by the coin fountain for the birds, but that was all he did in regards to his typical morning rituals. He HAD to get outside and find her again.

   Surprisingly, despite all of his anxiety and his fear, it had been relatively easy locating her. She must have walked around the opposite side of the mall last night, where he wouldn't have been able to see her. Today, she was back by the front entrance again. He was thrilled, but he did notice something was off. There was the same large throng of people mulling about as usual, but the young woman seemed to be on her own, keeping separate from the rest of them. She appeared tired, worn down, with her head slumped forward and her feet dragging. He worried that she might end up collapsing if she continued to work herself so hard. He had no way of calling out to her, since he did not know her name.    He thought he saw something red dripping from her lips. She was so exhausted that she didn't even notice that her make-up was running. How sad. It made him want to do something crazy. It made him want to go out there. Approach her. Talk to her. Comfort her.    He reached out and placed his hand upon the locks that would open the gate. He had the keys to unlock them. He remembered specifically being told to never open the gate. He thought of the red dripping off of her face again. He needed to make it out there. He couldn't stay behind this chain link fence forever. He was sure that it would be fine. He didn't think anyone would yell at him too much if he explained why he did it. Surely they'd forgive him.

   He opened the gate and stepped outside. The chain link fence that once impeded his path was now just an obstacle of the past.    The crowd started to shift in its movements. Many of the people started to march toward him, some of them more sluggishly than others. He knew what they wanted to do. They were likely going to yell at him for making such a stupid choice. They were going to tell him to go back behind the gate where he belonged. He couldn't quite make out their gargling, wet screams, but he already knew everything that they likely wanted to say.    He ignored them all.    He made his way through, pushing aside those who stood in front of him for too long. The need for politeness was no longer a concern for him, at least not right now. Not when he had someone he so badly needed to reach. Closer, closer, it was almost so close that he feel her heat. He was ready to pull her in. She was already dragging him toward her with her gravitational pull, so strong as it was. He ignored the way that the people in the crowd tugged at his clothes, his hair, his face and his arms. He knocked them away; nothing was going to stop him from seeing her.    He was standing in front of her before he even knew it. She smiled at him. What appeared to be her lipstick ran as a thick, wet red line down the length of her chin.    However, he did not smile back. He saw her face up-close for the very first time and it frightened him. Even though he had been able to see that smile from afar, he'd never quite noticed all of these tiny little contours and lines that made up her face. Somehow, he had never made the connection until now when they were standing face-to-face. The longer he gazed at her, the more his skin started to prickle with thousands of rising goosebumps.    He was beginning to remember things. Clarity was starting to return to him for the first time in days, weeks, maybe months since the initial breakdown. The insanity that had plagued him and crippled his mind was seeping away in the wake of a revelation. He couldn't recall much, but what he remembered were things he had been sure he'd lost long ago.    His life. His family. His home. His girlfriend.    "...Cassandra?"

She tried to reach for the third eye, not even sure what she would do about it, but she couldn't bring her fingers close, the heat radiating off of her eye was hot enough to make it untouchable. It was a true wonder that her poor brain wasn't cooking right now. She could tell something was coming, but she had no idea what it was. It was gradually building, bigger and bigger, and she was afraid it would pop, taking her with it. Whatever it was.

"Satomi, please, stay back. I'll protect you." Ben stepped in front of her. He raised his gun-like contraption toward the howling Golem.

"What is that thing?"

"It's...well, it should be able to get it to go back to the other side of the barrier." Ben shrugged.

"Barrier? What barrier? How would that make it go 'back'?" Satomi was starting to panic, as if she didn't have enough madness to contend with inside her own head.

"Didn't you see those flashes of green around by its head?"

Satomi looked up, although she had to stare through all of the tears that were gushing from her eyes. Even though she had to squint, she could see what Ben was talking about; there were little green wisps, barely existing for more than a flash of a second, that were coiling around the Golem's singular eye. These lights were brief but visible. She had initially thought it was coming from the monster itself, but apparently it was due to it trying to pass through some sort of 'barrier', according to Ben. Then again, how much did Ben actually know? Why did he know any of this? How long had he been aware of it all? Satomi had far too many questions to ask, but she had a good feeling there was going to be little time to get them all answered. Nonetheless, she called out his name.

"Ben..."

"The barrier is being weakened. They managed to build something strong enough to go after you." Ben positioned the massive weapon so that its tail sat on his shoulder. It began to emit a deafeningly loud whirring sound. Satomi's forehead felt like it was going to shatter. She started moving toward the Golem, but it was not entirely of her own volition; her third eye was drawing her to it. Whatever had been growing inside, it was time for it to emerge.

"Ben...please..."

"Satomi! Wait!"

The machine's whirring was drowned out by the sound of an even louder boom, as Satomi's head careened backward fast enough to nearly crack her neck in half. She felt herself awash in relief as whatever had been fired from the center of her third eye shot through the air, like an invisible bullet or a laser even, and it collided into the Golem's right arm. Just like the first time it had fired, it instantly vaporized whatever it touched, removing several of the boulders that constructed the arm. The remainder of its ruined limb was left to crumble into a dusty heap at the foot of the mountain. The green barrier light made quick work of devouring those detached stones, eliminating them from existence and leaving the Golem with only one complete arm. Of course, this made the invader very angry, and it expressed such feelings with a guttural growl.

Ben stared at the creature, then at Satomi. "You might be able to handle this on your own." he said.

Satomi took a few seconds to catch her breath, feeling as if she'd just run a marathon around the mountain while wearing a sack of bricks on her back and drinking crushed hot peppers instead of water. She leaned over, panting, with her hands on her knees. Her brain was surely split in two by now, somehow still operating by the thin web of membrane that connected them.

"Ben...why don't you...help the villagers? I mean, they're all in trouble here! Mrs. Tiamat, her kids, Enlil, the pairs of twins...they need to be protected too, not just me! Let's go and find them and figure out what to do!"

Ben stared at Satomi as if she'd just spouted complete and utter nonsense. Maybe she had.

"They're not going to need our help, Satomi. Haven't you noticed everyone but us has basically just up and disappeared?"

Satomi, although it hurt to even move her head or blink her eyes, took a quick look around. The square certainly was far more deserted than she recalled it being before the giant rock monster attacked, but she had assumed that was because everyone had run away to safety, probably to the schoolhouse at the edge of the village limits.

"They don't want to lose you to them either, but...that's not really their choice in the matter."

"What?"

"They'll fight to keep you here, but you don't belong actually in this place. Neither do I, as a matter of fact."

"What?" Satomi repeated.

The Golem started to come after them again, the flashes of green light rippling over its rocky skin in waves. The barrier was clearly making an effort to pull it back, but the creature's apparent willpower was making leeway. It reached for them once more.

"I'll do it this time. Don't wear out the eye, or yourself." Ben told her.

"We need...to go and help them..." Satomi started to back away. She had to make sure that the villagers were alright, the people who had befriended her and cared for her all of these years. She had to make sure. The handsome young man who ran her favorite book store was not the person she'd thought he was, if she could take his actions right now at more than face value. At the very least, he could care for himself without her presence. She tried to turn, but the instant that she did, the sole of her sandal pressing into the dirt, she was struck with another migraine, burning as if her own flesh had just been cut open with a blade. She swiveled, nearly catching herself on her foot and almost crashing face-first into the grass. Whatever was coming, it was throbbing loud and hard.

Ben fired his weapon, the one he had spent all of this time charging. It came out in a burst of light that nearly made Satomi shut her eyes. Dozens of energized whips, tendrils of white-orange light, came spewing out at once from the giant gun's barrel; these tendrilsensnared themselves around the remaining arm of the Golem. The whips glowed even brighter as they began to steadily melt away the rock with heat, hotter than magma itself. The Golem's single eye started rapidly flashing, but it did not even attempt to growl this time. Now that Satomi thought of it, she had no idea how it was making any sound in the first place, without a visible mouth on its body. The whips buried into the crooks and crannies, any single crack that they could find within its geological structure, filling them with intense heat. Ben turned a dial on the side of the machine, cranking it up from a number 3 to a letter X, and more whips were unleashed. Soon, the Golem's whole left arm was alight. It wouldn't likely take more than a handful of minutes before it was left arm-less.

"Satomi!"

"W-What is it, Ben?" Satomi jerked; she hadn't expected such a harsh shout of her name.

"We're not going to stay here for long." Ben told her, his focus still transfixed on the Golem as he continued to hold down the gun's trigger, the burning tendrils slinking deeper into the cracks of the creature's limb. "I'm sorry, Satomi, I was hoping that I could break all of this to you gently, but they didn't leave any choice when they suddenly decided to throw this thing at us...I'm very sorry."

Satomi's third eye still hurt, but she couldn't help but feel a little touched. "Ben, are you going to be able to kill this thing?" she felt that was more important to ask, though.

"It'd be for your own safety. You can't overuse that eye's power."

"What...is this eye anyway?" Satomi asked. "How much do you actually know?"

Ben opened his mouth to speak, but before he could even move his lips to form a single syllable, another voice, a deep and rumbling voice that echoed inside their very minds, spoke first.

"Yes, Ben, how much DO you know? No, you do not need to answer that, for WE know, and that is all we need to know."

Ben gasped. Satomi's headache seemed to increase to a multitude she hadn't even expected before, one that truly did make it difficult to keep her eyes open or remain standing on her feet. She dropped to the ground, barely catching herself on her knees. The Golem started to struggle as its other arm was gradually melting away, spilling out like black goo all over the ground. The very light around the pair seemed to dim, and then, suddenly, their own shadows sprouted to life; they became three-dimensional as they emerged from the Earth itself. Satomi's shadow started to reach over to grab the incapacitated Oni. Ben swore. He tossed the gun aside, deactivating it and freeing the Golem, as he lunged to attack the shadow. Ben knew what he'd done was probably more stupid than he could have ever imagined, but he had to do it. It was his duty to ensure that Satomi was alive when he brought her back. He would even let the Golem go again if it meant having to take the chance to rescue her. Still, that little part of him that he despised so much, the nagging part of him that questioned the authority he so willingly believed in with all of his heart, wondered if he hadn't just made a fatal error for himself.

His hand slipped into his shirt and he removed from it a blade, one small enough to conceal within clothing but still long enough to be considered more than a knife.

"Ben, you misjudged us and you misjudged yourself."

Ben attempted to cut Satomi's shadow, only to find his arm stopping in mid-swing. A hand constructed from concentrated darkness was holding him in place by the wrist. Looking over his shoulder, Ben realized that it was his own shadow. He thought he could have avoided it, but this 'thing' possessed the same speed after all. A grimace spread across Ben's pale face. He could tell without struggling that he would not be able to leave the shadow's grasp unless it chose to release him. The chill he felt was undeniable, a chill of coming death. The shadow spoke to him, through his brain, using much softer inflections than when it initially began to talk. Somehow that made it even worse to listen to.

"You misjudged yourself because you thought you were skilled enough to come within our territory and attempt to steal our treasure without us ever being aware of it. You misjudged us because you thought that we would actually fall for your paltry tricks."

The shadow squeezed and Ben was suddenly overtaken with intense pain that racked his entire arm. However, he held back his scream, as it would have been nothing more than a display of personal weakness if he did.

"We had suspicions of you, for we do not recall your existence in our territory or that we ever allowed you to enter in the first place. We needed a reason to truly suspect you and now you have given us it. You thought we would be too preoccupied in pushing back the Golem to resume our surveillance of you, but you misjudged us again. You told Satomi everything that we wished to know, and what you didn't tell her, we are more than capable of putting the rest of the pieces together. You are the same as that Golem, an invader and a would-be thief. We needed an opportunity and this provided it."

"You got me." Ben said, more than a little anxious.

"Satomi will not leave this place. She will not go with them," the shadow said, motioning toward the Golem, "Or with you. We will lose our advantage in this war if she is taken. That cannot be allowed."

Ben started to speak after a few moments to collect his thoughts, but as he spoke, his found himself growing more and more passionate, until he began yelling at the top of his lungs. "You won't even use her, keeping her up on that mountain! She...she's nothing more than a deterrent for you! That won't last forever! I know...who can...use her...for what she's capable of! You won't even let her be a real Oni! You have no use for her! We know what to do with her, so stop this! Your advantage is no advantage at all!"

"You know nothing. The third eye is invaluable whether it's used or not."

"I have to bring her back! I have to take her away from here!"

"I'm sure that you do, which is why we, in turn, must not allow you to accomplish your mission. We already know your name now, Ben-Kei."

"I never tried to hide my name. None of you ever asked, that's all."

Ben's shadow hurled its human counterpart onto the ground with a single thrust. Ben fell flat, hitting his stomach against a misplaced stone. The shadow straddled him and, reaching within its own chest, removed a knife of the same shape and length as the one clutched in Ben's broken hand. Ben stiffened his body and clenched his jaw, sucking in air between his teeth. The shadow brought the knife down, cutting through Ben's flesh as easily as any real blade would. Ben's eyes bulged inside their sockets. The shadow removed the blade and held it overhead for a moment, allowing the blood to flow off in droplets, before it brought it down again, cutting open another wound on Ben's back. Again and again, Ben's shadow proceeded to stab the young man multiple times, doing so in such a way that it would clearly result in an intensely painful, dragging death. Not once was the same wound stabbed twice, but each one was deep enough to yield copious amounts of blood. Ben could barely keep his eyes open any longer; the knife wounds reached such a height of pain that they were almost numbing to him, he hardly felt it as the steel slipped in and out every time. So he wished, but that was a lie. There was blood spreading over him and underneath him, he was drenched in it.

He had no idea what had happened to the Golem, but he could no longer hear its roars. Everything around him had gone quiet. It may just be because all of his senses were starting to shut down due to him dying (he didn't really know, he had never died before), but he assumed that the damage he and Satomi had done to it helped push it back to the other side of the barrier. That meant that not only did Ben fail in achieving his objective, but so did the attacking Golem; Satomi was still going to be stuck here, in these monsters' utterly worthless clutches and without any idea of who or what she really was. Ben coughed, tasting copper in his mouth and something wet dripping down his chin. The shadow was still stabbing him, but even it could tell that its job was almost done. Ben felt like things could have gone so much better. He'd been so close, so close to succeeding and fulfilling his master's orders, becoming a big hero when he returned with the girl in tow. If he had only been able to run with her back then. If he had only been able to kill that Golem sooner, so they could slip through the barrier themselves. If he had only never been picked for this job in the first place.

Before he dared to blink, because he was afraid his eyes would not open again if he did, he took one last glance at Satomi.

The Oni had long since passed out, her shadow oozing over her like a membrane. When she woke up, whenever that would be, Satomi would believe that nothing had ever changed at all. This would be even worse than it being for naught, because now his master had lost one of his precious soldiers in the wake of the mission's failure. The young man's eyelids grew heavier and heavier. He could no longer keep them from falling.

Unfortunately, all of those memories seemingly vanished from her subconscious the moment she opened her eyes every morning.

Satomi Hibiki opened her eyes to see a pair of yellow orbs staring directly back at her.

"Oh, Yuzu sweetie, are you hungry?" Satomi asked.

The black cat pawed at its owner's chest with its white, mitten-like paws, meowing insistently. She patted the cat's head, scratching behind its ears and feeling the texture of its soft fur against her fingers, and then she lifted it up by its collar and placed the crying little creature onto the floor. Satomi sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. As she continued to bury her fist into her eyes, hoping she could wipe away all of the sand that had developed, she reached her free hand for her glasses case on the nightstand. It was a special case, carved out of the bark of the red trees that grew at the edge of the mountains, beside a river of salt water and sakura petals. Popping open the case, Satomi carefully picked up the lenses between her black fingernails and raised them up to her face.

Yuzu meowed again.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, hold on. Man, you're a demanding cat. Are all of your species like this?" Satomi replied. She straightened her glasses and, brushing away the covers, climbed out of bed. Her large feet hit the floorboards with an audible thud. Yuzu meowed and rubbed its head against her bare leg, tickling her with its whiskers, before it hurried off for the kitchen. Satomi shook her head. She had taken in the cat because she had felt sorry for it, seeing it wandering the village alone in the rain, but now it treated her as something akin to a personal servant. She had read that many pets behaved this way, but Satomi didn't know how humans found it so endearing. She loved Yuzu as an adorable cat and a companion in an otherwise lonely home, but the feline liked to try her patience time and again.

"Coming, Yuzu." Satomi called out to the cat. It had to wait just a little while longer. She still needed to clean herself and get dressed first.

It was while she washed herself down with lemon-scented soap and salts, body-care products she had purchased from the village, that Satomi happened to glance rather carelessly at her reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall, and she was reminded once again that she was an Oni, a demon. Sometimes she managed to forget even that, because as well as she could recall, to the very beginning of her life, she was the only one alive of her kind.

She had two horns, one that jutted out from the back of her head like a fat, red spike. Her frontal horn had been severed some point before where her memories stopped going back, so she was left with an embarrassing-looking nub instead. She had no idea where the rest of the horn had gone. She had a third eye in the center of her forehead, but it spent most of its time shut, and whenever it did open, bad things tended to follow. Her hair was a haphazard mixture of white and sickly lime-green in terms of coloration, and though her locks were long enough to cascade down her broad back until they reached the floor, she typically kept it all tied up in a simple ponytail. A pair of sharp fangs permanently jut up from her bottom lip, though they weren't large enough to incite terror thankfully. Being an Oni, Satomi was inhumanely large in most areas of the body, particularly when it came to both her height and musculature. However, she had never asked for such 'gifts', it was simply due to her genetic make-up and background. All of it was.

She'd only come to understand more about herself through reading, which was her first and foremost biggest hobby. She had tried to discover what had happened to her kind and why they had disappeared, but that information was mysteriously absent. However, she did manage to learn much more.

Apparently, Oni, according to the limited history given on them, were a violent and brutish bunch on par with most wild animals except for a slightly higher intellect; they were not exactly favored by most other beings. They carried giant clubs, bashing in the heads of weaker creatures for sport, and they had a great affinity for drink, especially sake. Satomi did not know how much of this was the real truth and how much of it was based on wild accusations and criminalizing fiction, but she did know that she wished to distance herself from these perceptions of the Oni as much as demonly possible.

That was why Satomi Hibiki was determined to make herself different from that. She would be a friendly Oni, a welcoming Oni. An intellectual Oni, to be even more precise.

Satomi exited her shower and threw a towel woven from the fur of mountain wolves over her large form; this towel was big enough to serve as a bed-sheet for a small mattress, but it just managed to cover her body, from her neck to her knees. She wiped herself clean, tossed the towel aside, and began dressing in her casual wear for the day. She owned a yellow kimono adorned with white and pink flower patterns, but she didn't wish to dress too fancy, because the winds seemed strong outside today and the last thing she needed was a wayward branch or the like coming off of one of those spindly trees and tearing a hole through her favorite outfit. Or something else of that nature.

Instead, she put on a leather jacket and padded pants she had purchased from town last week, for the sake of the oncoming cold. As nice as a kimono or robes may have looked on her, they weren't going to do much in protecting her from the natural elements. Even when an Oni like herself possessed a body-heat marginally higher than a human's, to live on a mountain-top without proper insulation, whether it was in the home or on one's body, was asking for trouble and nothing less.

Satomi looked over the bookcase in her bedroom, the one that stretched high enough to reach the ceiling. It was stocked full of books, everything she had purchased over the past three years and then some, neatly collected and arranged in a perfect alphabetical order. Many of her books from even earlier than that were stored away inside of her closet, in boxes or on the floor in towering stacks gathering dust. Satomi adored books for everything that they could provide, from excitement and thrills to useful information and life skills. She knew most of what she knew now because of books.

'Maybe I should head into the town today...see if there are any more books on sale...' Satomi often visited the town on her free days because of a particular shop, and it was not only because of the products that it carried that she enjoyed going there so often.

Suddenly, a cat's cry of hunger called to her from the kitchen.

"Ah! S-Sorry, Yuzu!" Satomi slipped her glasses back on (she had removed them again before washing herself) and scampered into the kitchen to tend to her pet. She was given a long and angry chewing out by the hungry cat for taking too long, a lot of meowing and hissing, but after it had eaten its full of food, the cat was once again willing to let itself be pet again. It wanted to follow Satomi out the door, but she refused to let that be the case; she had seen vultures hovering overhead before, looking to pick at the carcasses of freshly killed animals, but it wouldn't be hard to believe one could swoop down and make a kill of its own on a defenseless little cat. As troublesome as Yuzu was sometimes, Satomi did what she had to do to ensure it survived.

Even though it had not been the most socially responsible place for her to choose her home, Satomi's house was positioned near the top of a mountain. She'd read that many Oni liked to inhabit mountains, not all but many were found in such places. She'd had her reasons for living in such a place, though. Reasons she did not talk about aloud, but mused on often in the safe and quiet walls of her own mind.

It took over thirty minutes of careful traversing, walking straight down the path before Satomi could reach the town at the mountain's edge. It would take even longer when she eventually started the trek back up due to the steep incline.

Satomi readjusted her glasses and looked around. There were people everywhere. Normal, regular, mortal people. No horns or red skin or jagged teeth to be seen anywhere. In a way, it wasn't only a frustration, but it was even a little something of a relief. While Satomi would like to not be the only one of her kind, and she did feel sad about it often, there was a tiny part of her that would rather not see what a 'real' Oni was like. She didn't know if she would fit in with them or not. There was irony, hypocrisy and cruelty to be found all in that single line of thought alone.

"Oh, Satomi! Hello! Good morning!"

Satomi looked to see a plump young woman leave her house with a baby in one arm and her three-year-old's hand in the other. The two children stared up at the Oni with a mix of fascination and bewilderment on their faces, as they always did whenever they saw her. Satomi smiled and waved at the kids. The three-year-old removed his other hand from his mouth and waved back.

"Good morning, Mrs. Tiamat." Satomi said, nodding her head.

"Are you looking to spend the day here in town? You know you're always welcome, everyone likes you here. You don't have to spend all your time up in that mountain house of yours. You could come in for lunch later today if you'd like?"

Mrs. Tiamat was a nice woman, exceptionally kind and open-minded even when it came to having an Oni living nearby as her neighbor, but she had a tendency to talk too much to follow. Satomi shook her head.

"No thank you, ma'am. I'm only here to purchase some food and books and be on my way. I have a lot of reading to catch up on."

"Reading is fine and good, but it never hurts to put down the book and interact a little more, Satomi. You think we're still afraid of you or something? Mayor Anu's already talked to everyone about it a long, long time ago. You were even there! You should get rid of that old place up on the mountain and just move down here with the rest of us!"

Satomi nodded. She really should do that. She wanted to do that, even. She would like to stay around these wonderful people who had been willing to accept a literal monster like herself. Yet her third eye was a constant threat, and up there on the mountaintop, she could at least keep its effects at a safe distance from causing any of these humans harm, and that was just one of the reasons why she chose to keep herself partially isolated.

"Thank you, but really, I'm fine."

"Mama..." the older child holding Mrs. Tiamat's hand tugged on her arm as he called up to her.

"Hold on, you. Still, Satomi, let me know if you ever change your mind. Abzu's gotten more stubborn about things ever since we had our second child, but I don't think he'd be against giving you a place to stay for a little while, or even if you just wanted to have dinner with the family."

"I understand. Thank you very much."

"It's truly the least I can do. Have a good day, dear." Mrs. Tiamat nodded to the Oni, offering the demon the warmest smile she could conjure, and she led the small boy away, the baby still snug in her other arm, toward the direction of the school, of which Satomi could only assume was going to be her destination. The town itself was very small and split into three sections: the homes, the shops, and the school, which stood at the very edge of the town, built there so that it would be the furthest away from a potential avalanche to keep the children safe. It could even be used as a potential shelter for the town's entire populace if said avalanche were to take place. Fortunately it had not yet been used for such a reason.

Several more citizens stopped Satomi and greeted her that morning as she walked to the bookstore. There was Enki, an old man who was surprisingly nimble with his hands, who offered Satomi as a free gift a bundle of reeds he had bundled together and somehow managed to transform into a flute. He'd said that he'd been inspired by Pan, but Satomi was not sure if she had ever read about such a man, or creature, like that yet. Still, she couldn't turn him away when he started to hound her in his usual enthusiastic manner, so she accepted the handmade flute and thanked him. He was also the mayor's brother, and she didn't dare turn down even one of the relatives of the man who had been kind enough to ensure her welcome was undisputed among the townspeople.

There were the twins Lahmu and Lahamu, the other pair of twins Anshar and Kishar, the mayor's other brother Enlil, and the landlord who had sold her the house on the mountain, the oldest sister of the mayor (he had many siblings, the mayor) Ninhursag. They all knew Satomi well, and she them, and she felt her spirits lift up a little higher knowing that so many people cared about her, even if she was still a creature of an unknown origin.

The bookstore was a small one, although whenever she visited, there had never been a day where Satomi went there and did not find a new and fascinating book to take home with her. She doubted today would be an exception, but before she strolled inside, she stopped to look herself over in the reflection of the window. She straightened her glasses yet again, smoothed down a few stray hairs poking out, checked to ensure she wasn't showing off an immodest amount of cleavage, and tugged and flattened at everything else that she felt might have potentially been jutting out at an odd angle. She sighed and opened the door. She would normally never make this big of a fuss over looking good for anyone, but Ben was someone she, the last of her own kind, felt a special affinity for.

"Satomi! Early as ever, I see. I already have the box ready for you to dig through right here!" Ben laughed heartily as he stood up from behind the counter, holding up a straw basket filled with books of all sizes. If there was one good thing to say about having red skin, it helped hide a blooming blush much easier.

"Thank you, Ben."

Ben placed the basket onto the counter and walked around it so he could speak more closely with her. "I was only still putting things together, but I figured you were going to show up here, so I left the door unlocked just in case you wanted to walk in."

"Oh, really?" Like with everyone else she'd passed in town, Satomi had to bend her head forward just so she would be allowed to look the young man in the eye. She was about a full head taller than he was. "You didn't have to do that. I could wait for the proper opening time like anyone else."

"I don't think I've ever met someone as stubbornly modest as you, Satomi,"

"W-What?"

"You never want to take credit or be treated any better than anyone else for anything. I don't really get that. Don't you think you deserve some of it?" Ben asked.

"...I..."

---

Tanner Rolock's home was not a mansion, but a castle that sat atop a hill all its own.

At 45 years old, his contributions to Utopion's burgeoning society and its security, considered a top priority by the king of the capital himself, had allowed Tanner Rolock to essentially become one of the richest men in the entire country, which was no small feat when considered that everyone who lived in Utopion's walls possessed an abundance of wealth. While he was also a man who chose to remain humble in his social life, and liked to keep distance between himself and the numerous shallow-minded, money-hungry bigwigs of the upper echelons, he was not afraid to use his money where need be. He would buy what he wanted, for himself or for his family, and he would take full advantage of his status if it aided him at all. As such, he had had a home constructed for himself and his family, a home like none other. He had imported a home designer from an Eastern country to work together in constructing a blueprint of the home and every single detail that went into it, from the number of bedrooms all the way down to the colors of the toilet seat lids.

The construction had first begun on a small hill in the western part of Utopion, a section of green that had somehow remained untouched up until this point by the city's rapid expansion efforts. Tanner bought out the entire plot and began building there. His house was essentially two houses in one, connected by a single hallway passing through a large botanical garden. The house wrapped in an 80-degree angle over the hill, so one viewing the house from the front could only see the 'main building', with its granite spires, gargoyle statues, and double-wide mahogany doors. The entire structure was designed to resemble ancient castles of the far West of their world, but with a modern touch, using white and gold instead of gray and black. The bottom of the hill was entrapped by a thin fence with a gate in front; it was kept deliberately simple, not only to save on spending for more important aspects of the house, but to serve as an easy warning for potential burglars. It was the only warning they were granted, and if they stepped past that line, then whatever happened to them next was their faults and their faults alone.

Using a key-sized remote that only operated when reading his specific fingerprints, Tanner opened the gates to his multi-million-dollar abode. He enjoyed driving his own car, it was one of his few pleasures, he had no need for a chauffeur even if he could easily build himself one. He drove on the pathway leading up the hill, eventually reaching the garage, which, despite having enough space for three cars and a yacht (the latter of which they did not own, there being no lakes or ponds large enough), was like a shack compared to the house standing off beside it. Parking his car, Tanner checked his cellphone one last time to see if Proda Sanrez, that bloated snob, had sent him another message 'reminding' him that he find a solution to the glitches in the Ravlons' 'brain'. Whatever was making them all wail like that was a problem in the main operating system, which controlled the robots' basic functions. Tanner knew that much on his own.

Tanner saw there were no new notifications, so he shoved the cellphone back into his pocket. Those screams were still echoing inside his eardrums. He was going to head to the operating center tomorrow, spending all day working on deleting the bugs, if he had to.

'For now...the kids.'

Tanner opened the door of his black designer car, imported from a land far across the sea, and climbed out. He was immediately approached by a porcelain, humanoid figure gliding out of the dusty and cobweb-filled shadows. Tanner reacted with a small jump, which this doll recorded into its memory-banks as a necessary piece of information, so that it may review its possible actions the next time it approached its master, to ensure less of a negative reaction. The robot bowed its head to him.

"Welcome home, Mister Rolock."

"Moran, what are you doing here? I thought you would be inside, helping my wife." Tanner remarked rather coolly. Moran was the name of many things of importance to Tanner: an old business partner, the co-founder of the Ravlon Security System, and his best friend. He had been killed by unknown circumstances only a few years into the business's rise, but Tanner had sworn to never forget him. As such, he had named this particular Ravlon, redesigned to be a home servant, after his deceased friend, but he would have considered it going too far if he gave it the same face as well. Sometimes the question arose if naming a veritable slave after his dead friend was insulting to the memory. Tanner didn't know, personally.

"I had checked my internal schedule and discovered that you would be returning home in about an hour. I had waited inside the garage until then. I did this because I had several, very important messages to relay to you. Three to be exact."

Tanner cocked an eyebrow. "What are they?" Before he could meet with his family, he supposed he should hear what the robot had to say.

Moran replied, "First message. It is from Miss Sanrez, Head of Security of the King's Council. She wished to inform you that you need to issue your latest report on the Ravlon Security System, so that it may be relayed to the King and the rest of his council. They are becoming impatient with you and demand to be kept up to date. She put quite a lot of emphasis on her final statement."

Tanner grimaced, rolling his eyes; that damn woman, purposely trying to prick a nerve of his, ever since they'd first met. She had to have been doing this on purpose, leaving a message with his butler robot instead of simply texting it to him like any normal human would. He'd decided his time was better spent not standing around after all, but he allowed Moran to continue speaking as the robot followed his master out of the garage.

"Second message. It was left by an anonymous caller, with the number and id being blocked, which is a very rare feat."

Tanner looked at his metal companion with arched eyebrows. "What did the caller say?"

"The caller left a string of numbers, but they did not have any particular meaning to me, from my attempts at deciphering them."

"Send it as an e-mail to my office computer. I'll look at them later." He had a suspicion who it was from and what it entailed, but that was meant to be a little secret. 'Between me, myself and I.' he thought.

"Understood, sir."

"What was the third message?" Tanner sighed. He was already thumbing through his pockets for his house keys.

"Third message. A note from Head of Commerce, Mister Clane, of the King's Council. He still does not approve of you making an adoption of one of the wayward children inside the 'commoner' city; he says that you know the reasons why they're there, and taking one in to raise is not going to quell any of the bad blood between their two societies."

Tanner frowned; he knew that was true. Any idiot could see that. If anything, it would possibly make the poor despise him and Utopion all the more, to rescue only one of them from poverty and leave the rest to wallow and sink like tadpoles in a shrinking puddle. Still, he wanted to do it. His wife had already agreed, his children seemed willing to accept the new addition to the family, and a bedroom was already being prepared for the arrival. He had his reasons for doing this, not all of them things he could say for the sake of good PR.

He knew that a certain man and his cronies were watching him. They must have already gotten the information about this adoption early, somehow. They would surely not miss their opportunity that day. The King's Council either played dumb or they were truly dumb and had no idea of the rebellion lurking behind the cover of brick and tar. Either way, Tanner intended to force them out of the shadows and into the light, and it would all take place only a few days from now.

Tanner removed his keys from his person, finally discovering them in his left breast pocket, and slipped them into the door's lock.

"Are those all of the messages? You didn't forget anything, Moran?"

Moran gave pause. "I did not, sir."

"Are you positive?"

"There are no remaining messages inside of my data-banks; I have divulged to you all information I possess regarding this topic, sir."

Tanner wondered about that. He still was looking at his android servant when opening the front door, so he failed to notice a small, speeding object before it had the chance to collide with his legs. Tanner nearly toppled backward from the impact, but he quickly recognized the assailant by her copper-brown hair and the scent of strawberries that she loved so much.

"Daddy!"

Tanner ruffled the hair of his youngest, and currently only, daughter, laughing, "Hey there, Magdalene, how are you doing today?"

"Daddy!" she cried again.

"What is it, Mags?"

"Daddy, daddy, daddy!"

A nod in the robot's direction. "Moran, can you take care of her, please?"

"Right away, sir." the mechanical butler walked forth and reached out to snatch up the child.

"Daddy, there's so much I did today! You gotta hear-"

Tanner kissed her on the forehead as Moran lifted her into its arms. "I'll hear it all at dinner tonight, sweetie. Sorry, but I need to talk to mommy first. I promise I'll listen to everything you have to say when I can. I really want to hear it."

"But, Daddy...!" the girl whined.

Tanner strode past them and went into the house. The entrance hall was one of the largest parts of the castle; there were three hallways he could take, the middle corridor shadowed by a section of stairway that arced over it, the staircases on either side of the room itself. It led to the second floor, where the bedrooms were located. He knew that his wife would not be upstairs at this point in the day. They had been together long enough, and close enough, that they understood the most likely places among the house where they would find each other at given points throughout the day. Tanner took a sharp right down the western corridor, which would lead him to the gardens if he followed it. It always had before and he didn't expect any different.

As he walked, passing by ornate paintings on the walls and vases filled with delicate flowers, Tanner briefly wondered where his son was. Then again, he realized that was a foolish question to even ask, whether aloud or in his head. Of course Sen would be in his room, he always was. Tanner sighed. The difficulties of trying to be the father for a happy family and planning the take-down of a secret rebellion behind the backs of his own superiors were equally challenging, he'd admit that in a heartbeat. Maybe the upcoming addition to their family would manage to get Sen out of his rut. It'd make things much, much easier for everyone in the house.

This particular hallway widened at the end, where it immediately transitioned into an open-air corridor, which not only connected the front-side section of the castle with its other half, but also served as an entrance into the gardens, where Falia chose to spend most of her time. The corridor had its windows and whole sections of the walls removed so that one could experience the warmth of a spring climate, but still with keeping a roof to shade their head. A translucent membrane was constructed on either end of this open-air corridor, which prevented insects, wild animals and natural elements of the unsavory kind from getting inside. Tanner stepped past it; it was completely harmless to human beings.

"Falia? Are you here? Falia? I'm home...!"

"A bit redundant to announce you're home when you made it clear already beforehand, isn't it, Tanner?"

A sharp, but harmless poke in the back sent Tanner stumbling forward. He quickly caught himself, head whipping over his shoulder to see the pointed end of a rapier thrusting at his face. He leaped forward, performing a partial roll before stopping, flipping his entire body around to face his assailant in the proper manner. The rapier had stopped just short of piercing the empty space his head had been occupying a half-second ago. The wielder of the weapon was clad in white, their face shrouded by the typical fencing head-wear, but the voice that had reverberated from behind the mask took away any need for a guessing game. A tiny smirk trickled across his lips.

Out of his left eye's corner, he spotted a branch resting against one of the numerous chairs set around the gardens. It was long and thin, practically all of the same dimensions as a rapier. How lucky. He lunged for it. The fencer attempted to step in the way, using the rapier as a trustworthy deterrent to block his path, but to try and discourage Tanner Rolock from the plans he'd already made was like trying to halt a freight train with nary but your own bare hands. His right arm shot out, grasping the rapier and he forced it, along with the fencer's arm, to lift upward, so he could slip beneath it. It happened so fast, Tanner moving as if he'd morphed into a living whip, the fencer was momentarily frozen from shock, and it was that brief gap that allowed Tanner to retrieve his make-shift weapon. As soon as he had securely grabbed hold of the stick, he took a swing at the fencer's mask.

The fencer managed to duck and dodge at the last moment, but not fast enough, the stick grazing the top of their head. The assailant was quick to retaliate with another thrust of the rapier, which Tanner managed to avoid yet again with a twist of his waist. Before it had seemed uncertain, but at this point, the two opponents were on equal terms, or at least it might have initially appeared so to the outside viewer. Tanner was currently in the middle of combat against someone who fought using the typical fencing style, but he had no reason, or intention, of playing by the same set of rules. He took another swing, forcing the fencer to back away, but who quickly reacted with yet another thrust. Tanner took two steps back and the tip of the rapier just barely scratched his belly-button. He started to reach out to grab the rapier again, but the fencer immediately retreated, pulling the blade back in to them. It was practically a stand-off, yet it was nothing he hadn't experienced in the past; Tanner had run into many of these before against this particular person. Stand-offs were a staple in their relationship.

He let the stick drop from his hand.

"Falia, you need to be more careful; you could have gotten yourself hurt, provoking me like that."

The fencer reached up and removed their mask, revealing a beautiful woman, plump cheeks framed by curly brown locks.

"Excuse me?"

"Huh?"

"What did you just say?"

"What? I did what?"

"What did you just say to me? That I could have gotten hurt because of YOU? Are you joking? I hope that you are, for your sake."

"Heh..."

"Just because you're the one who paid for this house doesn't mean you're just as entitled to share my bed tonight, if you're going to go around claiming I was the one about to lose in this bout."

Tanner shrugged. "I have not been able to defeat you yet, so who am I to go making claims like that?"

"Do you think I was closer or was it you?"

"Does it really matter? You still have five wins over me; that's enough to say who is the winner here."

Falia was still not particularly amused, having always been immensely prideful of her talents in combat, but she seemed willing to forgive, and Tanner could not have asked for anything better. He had once witnessed her when she decided to face someone she could not forgive, and despite the chills of terror it might have incited deep inside, it also inspired him to ask for her hand in marriage. He approached her to kiss her, and Falia allowed it, lowering her rapier by her side.

"Decided to practice your fencing skills in the gardens again, eh?" asked Tanner.

"It's the only place I can anymore, without Magdalene putting herself in danger by trying to distract me."

Tanner nodded. Magdalene had once been quite fond of the gardens, but since a particularly nasty incident involving a giant praying mantis, she had vehemently refused several times to ever step foot in them again. If her mother was out in the gardens, then Magdalene had no choice but to wait, however impatiently, for her return.

"Yet you didn't hold back on me."

"I knew you were going to dodge, because we've been together so long. If I cut you, if I made that mistake, we'd just patch you up."

"I'd prefer not to get my face cut apart, no matter how much I enjoy our games. Speaking of, you haven't lost a bit of your skill."

Falia shook her head. She sighed. "I have. If I hadn't, as you say to try and comfort me, you would be on the floor and on your back right now. Ah, I've let myself get too fat and weak living this wonderful life with you and the children. Not the worst pay-off, I suppose it could be worse, but it bothers me."

There were a number of lines he could have told her to try and soothe the worries present of any typical middle-aged woman: "You still look young", "You're not fat", "your hair hasn't shown any signs of graying yet", "you are still as young as ever", but Tanner was not entirely convinced any of those sayings would have done more than bring out further ire in his wife, who was far from the typical standard. She never accepted anything less than the truth, she couldn't even stand it when things were 'sugar-coated' for her sake. Tanner had already figured out that much about her, he knew it had to do with a large amount of the influences from her militaristic upbringing.

In the years before Tanner and the real Moran had first crafted the Ravlon android blueprints, the city of Utopion was protected from the commoners by other humans. They were a so-called 'police force' that spanned the entire length of the capital and then some, but in Tanner's view of things, and one of the reasons why he felt it was so necessary to develop the robotic guardians, the police force had operated more like a private army serving under the King's command. Falia's father just so happened to be the man in charge of the force at the time Tanner was growing up.

Tanner never had the chance to ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage, or share that meaningful heart-to-heart between a groom and his bride's father before the wedding, as Falia's father had been killed by a man who apparently managed to make it over the wall from the poor district. It had been a fluke, the commoner accidentally snapped his neck in the middle of a scuffle, but the effects were felt throughout the entire city of Utopion. Falia herself had loved her father, but she'd admitted that he was unyielding and harsh, even raising her up like a boy for most of her childhood. On a side-note, Tanner didn't think he would have been a good grandfather to their kids, and he'd never liked the man in the first place during the time he was alive, but he kept that a personal secret for the sake of good relations.

When Tanner first met Falia, she had been a member of the police force herself. She still carried some of the mentality from those old days, and it showed. She probably would never change, she was too old for that.

"Well, in a few days, you'll have more time to run around chasing kids and burning calories."

"We're still going through with the adoption? Do you think it will work?" Falia asked, sounding a little more incredulous than Tanner would have appreciated from her, "Can we really stop this supposed rebellion, when you can't even convince the King or his Council to believe you? I'm all for your plan, Tanner, and I'm going to be apart of it, but I still keep thinking it over, and I have my doubts."

"They'll believe me once I return with evidence." Tanner replied, and paused, "And the child."

"I have nothing against helping to raise another child, our house is too large for only four people and a robot...but why do an adoption for an undercover operation? Is it even necessary at all?"

Tanner shrugged. "I thought it could help. If we could save someone from having to live in that cesspool any longer, that's good PR. We've helped a life and put them in a good place."

"Yet we'd still leave the rest to rot and die in there, because that's what we want." said Falia, removing her fencing suit. "It's why we put them there in the first place, isn't it? That's what my father told me."

Tanner stared at her.

"We can afford to help one life, not several thousand." Tanner quietly responded, after a few moments of letting the thoughts fester in his mind.

Moran poked his head out from through the membrane barrier near the west entrance of the gardens. "Sir, you have a call waiting on the line. It is from Mister Clane. He wants to discuss with you about your plans again. He seems agitated."

"As usual, with that man," Tanner didn't understand why Clane liked to get up in his business all the time. As long as he'd known him, they'd never been able to get along or agree on anything.

"Tell him off," Falia advised, as she had said several times before, whenever her husband had been forced to get into argument after heated argument with the man named Esther Clane.

"I can't, he's too damn important," Tanner sighed.

"Don't let him push you around," Falia shook her head, "I'm the only one allowed to do that."

Tanner laughed, but he really was in no joyful mood; Clane wanted to speak right to the man himself, he was too impatient to wait for a call that would never come, he was always the one who had to call first, no matter what. He had been there at the meeting, where Tanner told the Council of his plan. He was the most vocally against it, and now he thought he had a chance of actually talking Tanner out of it. He really had no idea who he was dealing with. It was like a rat thinking it had the audacity to try and intimidate an anaconda.

--

As with many things about their world, no one knew why there were trees that had grown to such immense sizes, some with branches large enough for small groups of people to gather on a single one. These trees were densely packed together into forests that stretched for miles; these trees could reach hundreds of feet into the air, each one scaling high enough to tower over the majority of Titans, and thus they were a perfect vantage point for humans. If the plains were undoubtedly the Titans' territory, then the forests were the closest thing that humanity had to a relative 'safe zone'.

Sebastian cautiously leaned himself forward to peer over the edge of the massive branch that Fifth Squad had chosen to take refuge on. He could see the horses as tiny figures far below, huddled around the base of the tree with their reins tied to a spike in the ground. One of the horses sat, while the other three remaining on their feet. It was impressive, how selective breeding could produce such strong and dependable creatures. They appeared calm as they helped themselves to the plentiful grass around them by their hooves. How they managed to remain calm when a Titan was sitting in their presence, Sebastian couldn't tell. If only human beings had such admirable steel wills as their steeds.

Sebastian gulped. The Titan was staring directly at him, and blue eyes met with murky grays. Stringy globs of white saliva started to dribble down the Titan's chin the longer it held its gaze on him. The young man grimaced. He decided it would be particularly best if he no longer stared at the Titan, lest he give it any reason to act. If he looked further in the distance, he could see several more Titans observing them, all different sizes and builds, but thankfully none of them were large enough to reach them in the tree nor were they intelligent enough to attack their horses. For now they were safe, in one sense of the word. How they would outrun or kill these Titans once it was time to leave, however, was a different story altogether. Sebastian looked back at his comrades; he hoped that Squad Leader Leopold was formulating a plan as he sat there, arms and legs crossed with his eyes screwed tight shut. Raimond, Ursula and Wendel were eating military rations to replenish their energy.

"Sebastian, stop looking at the Titans and come over here to eat. They're not all that tasty, but it's better than nothing." Raimond held out one of the rations in offering.

Leaving the Titans alone for now, Sebastian scuttled over and took his place among the four to receive the ration from Raimond. "Thank you."

"Rations suck. I should have brought some fruit or vegetables on this trip. Shit...I could go for some tomatoes and crackers instead of this tasteless crap..." Wendel grumbled under his breath.

"Or how about some glazed ham? That's pretty good, right?" Raimond joked.

"You can keep your meat for yourself." After having witnessed so many people being eaten by Titans in the past, Wendel Bodt had settled to becoming a vegetarian; he couldn't bring himself to eat anything with a face or a brain. It made him feel too similar to those monsters.

The bearded man shook his head in response, stating, "Nothing's ever going to make you eat meat again, huh?"

"I highly doubt it, man,"

Sebastian started to rip open the thin, plastic cover that contained the ration. He was feeling anything but hungry right now. Wendel made note of this and decided to make a comment, as he was prone to do.

"How are you doing? You saw several people die, your horse was killed, a Titan nearly grabbed you...fuck, that's more shit than most first timers would ever experience without getting outright killed themselves!" Wendel remarked. "If you need a change of pants, you're out of luck, we don't bring anything like that with us anymore after our first two treks outside the walls. You didn't bump your head or anything, huh?"

Ursula was tearing into her ration with a surprisingly ravenous hunger, and she had two more waiting to be eaten on her lap. No one seemed to be raising a complaint about this, even as she scarfed down the last remnants of her ration and moved onto the next, so Sebastian wasn't going to make a remark about it either. He wouldn't have been able to stomach more than one ration anyway. Ursula was too engrossed in her own eating to tell Wendel off for making his insensitive quips. She wiped her mouth with a napkin, lapping up some crumbs off her cheeks, and she continued. Raimond cast glances at her now and then.

"I don't know how I survived all of that, but I'm sorry." Sebastian let his head sway from side to side.

"Sorry?" Raimond sank his teeth into his ration and tore off a large chunk, "What's that for?"

"Shouldn't I apologize, at the least? Isn't it at least partially my fault that we're stuck in this situation? I didn't run from that Titan when I had the chance, I didn't react like I should have, and I let my horse die, leaving me without my own transportation...I'm already turning into a burden for you all..." All I wanted to do was avenge my brother, which, in a world of death like this one, was basically fanciful thinking of a child, Sebastian additionally thought, but he would have only embarrassed himself further had he said that part aloud. Weighed down by a combined fashion of guilt and self-loathing, he looked down at the ration in his hand and considered handing it over to Ursula.

Wendel nodded in agreement. "Yeah, sucking is something you seem to be good at, but that's because you're a greenhorn. We didn't have the chance to save those who did choose to die fighting, like Sandra and her squad, but we try to save everyone we can. Your life is pretty much forfeit out here, but we're not going to give you or anyone else up without a fight if we can help it."

"Aye, we do what we can, but in our line of work, it's natural that we lose people no matter how hard we try. What you need to do, Sebastian, is figure out how to keep yourself under control: you joined for your brother, he's dead now, but you were too prideful before we left, and then you lost your shit when it came time to face a real Titan. That's normal, trust me, but you can't survive or fight with us if you're just one or the other. You gotta find that balance between courage and fear, so you can fight hard but never forget about your own mortality...I think that's how Commander Leopold put it, right? Wendel, back me up here!"

"Hell, how would I know? Don't ask me! I don't know what you're talking about right now!"

Sebastian thought about it, but it hardly took him long to realize that Raimond and Wendel were both right. He had to conquer the innate fear of the Titans and fight. Fighting was hard, it was dangerous and usually lead to death, but it was the only thing a human being could possibly do when faced against monsters like these Titans. If he didn't fight, he was basically putting himself on a platter and asking to be eaten, like one of the pigs Raimond was starving for. Sebastian needed to rethink his way of doing things from here on out, but nonetheless, he was going to put his best foot forward to take on the Titans. Like a soldier of the Survey Corps should. At least, Sebastian believed in himself enough that he would be able to do it; maybe he would get killed next time he confronted that Abnormal Titan again, if that had to happen.

No matter how much bravado or how much terror he let affect his actions, he wouldn't know how he would handle himself until the time to fight a Titan finally came.

Ursula had stopped eating, and when Sebastian looked to her, he noticed that she was bent over with her arms clenched around her stomach. Her face, hidden behind a drape of dark hair, was unreadable, but the low groans emitting from mouth were not a positive sign. Sebastian dropped his ration, instantly forgotten.

"Ursula...?"

Ursula started to moan louder. She placed her hands upon her stomach, thrust her head over the branch, and released the soggy, partially-chewed contents of everything she'd eaten up until this point. Wendel began rising to his feet, but Raimond was faster, immediately lunging to the woman's side. He placed one hand on her shoulder and his other hand into her own, giving it a tender squeeze, and Sebastian could only stare. Leopold opened his eyes, turning to watch this spectacle alongside Wendel, whose mouth was stuck agape. All three men were spellbound, stricken with a confused terror, and concern for their friend.

"Ursula, what's wrong? Are you...is it...?" Raimond was afraid to complete the question aloud, but Ursula seemed aware enough of what he was trying to say. She swallowed and forced a tiny nod.

"It's...it's no good...I'm...I'm sorry..." To Sebastian's surprise, Ursula started to weep, tears streaming in waves down her pale cheeks. "I need more food than this...he's hungry." Ursula suddenly looked quite furious, and not even the dribble of post-digested ration on her chin could have disrupted the rage on her face, "Look, I can't hide it for much longer, Raimond!"

"No, it's okay...we'll get home! You can't...please don't give up yet..." Raimond whispered, but he sounded just as desperate and broken, if not more so, than the woman trembling against his arm. Raimond held her close, encompassing her smaller frame with his enormity. She nearly disappeared into his boulder-sized abdominal muscles, she curled in so close to him, but she also seemed to be struggling in his grasp. She placed her tiny palms against his chest and pushed away.

"I never should have come on this expedition! I'm so sorry, Raimond..." Ursula flopped forward after a few seconds, and her words were slightly muffled, her face half-buried into Raimond's body. Now she was emotional again, but in the completely opposite direction.

"W-What the hell is going on, Raimond?" Wendel was, of course, the first to throw a fit. Leopold did not look any more amused, but Sebastian was starting to piece it all together in his head, the longer he observed Raimond and Ursula's interactions. They weren't just friends, that much was made clear in these past few seconds, but they couldn't have possibly been married. Considering the casualty rates, marriage would have been a waste of money and effort.

"Yes, Raimond, Ursula. What is the meaning of this suddenly?" Leopold's mutton-chops twitched and rustled; whether it was just the wind's doing or his own perplexed displeasure expressing itself through his facial hair, that was unknown.

Ursula spoke, her voice clearer but still notably shaky, "I'm sorry, sir...it's just...my time of the month, that's all...so please..."

"Your dialogue with Raimond certainly did not sound like this has to do with your 'time of the month'. Not to mention, I have seen you on your time of the month before, and it was never as dramatic or concerning to watch as this!"

Sebastian tried to keep his poker face; should he really be hearing any of this right now?

"Squad Leader Leopold, please! She's not feeling well-"

"No...Raimond, stop, we can't brush it away...look, help me stand up, I'm starting to get over the nausea. I'll say what needs to be said." Ursula was finally returning to her normal self, much to Sebastian's relief.

Raimond seemed quite stunned by her suggestion. "Ursula?"

"Please, Raimond."

Reluctantly, the large man heaved Ursula up onto her feet along with him, and she kept an arm hanging over his shoulders for support. Ursula's strength was gradually returning to her, and before she could collapse again, she managed to straighten herself and take a step forward without Raimond's aid. Sebastian could see she looked deathly pale, like someone had literally sucked any and all color from her face, but she looked so worn and ill too. Sebastian had thought she was rather quiet when he first met her, but maybe it was because she had been trying to withstand all of the pain this entire time. But why would she had been adamant in hiding it, from her own companions even?

"Ursula, I demand you answer me, what is going on here? Don't tell me you went on this expedition despite feeling ill!" Leopold snapped. "Don't you realize how dangerous that is? Not just for yourself, but for the entire squad as well!"

Ursula shook her head.

"No, Squad Leader Leopold, it's something much worse than that. I made a huge mistake, believing that today's expedition would have been a simple one. By the time that Abnormal Titan appeared and disrupted our position, I knew all hope was lost, but I couldn't...I couldn't say anything!"

"What is it, Ursula? Just tell us!" Leopold looked ready to smack her across the face.

Ursula slipped a trembling hand over her stomach and rubbed it. Raimond visibly winced in preparation for her announcement, turning his head away from the others. Sebastian had managed to guess it even before Ursula finally came out and said it aloud.

"I'm actually a few months into my pregnancy, but from trying to hide it from you all for so long, the baby is starting to suffer. Raimond is, of course, the father."

Sebastian whimpered as he expected his final moments to come swiftly. However, those moments never arrived, stopped dead in the middle of arrival. Instead, the Titan's fingers literally crumbled onto the grass, splashing blood, and Sebastian was blinded by a strike of sunlight to his eyes as the Titan drew its shadow back, just before Fifth Squad Leader Leopold landed down in front of him. His sword was drawn, the blood-stains on its steel already beginning to steam and sizzle.

"Sebastian Meyers!"

Sebastian held his hand over his face, to cover his eyes from the sun. "S...Squad Leader..."

"On your feet! There's a Titan to kill, and you were about to let yourself become its latest victim! What do you think you're doing?"

"I...ah...yes, sir. Understood, sir." Sebastian couldn't have offered an apology for either his incompetence or his failure to properly react; it would have made no difference, and in all likelihood it would have made the Squad Leader even angrier with him. He pressed his hand into the dirt as he lifted himself back onto his feet, taking the gravel with him so he could run it through his fingers one last time. The Titan had retreated back, but three soldiers had already begun to engage it, swiping valiantly at its arms and legs. The first Titan that had appeared was nothing but a smoldering pile of disintegrating bones; its neck must have been destroyed when the other Titan punched its head apart. Sebastian felt that familiar chill slink up his spine again, and now instead of exuding confidence like earlier today, he was becoming more and more constricted with his own fears and hesitations, enough so that it literally felt like he was being strangled.

The way that this Titan had punched out one of its own kind with nary a moment of hesitation, and how it murdered Sandra with minimum effort...how could mankind, even with all of their strategies, their specialized gear and their indomitable strength of will, ever hope to match these creatures? Sebastian wanted to believe in Commander Erwin Smith and the Survey Corps, but they were going to need more than just swords and maneuver gear to truly compete in the war to reclaim the planet.

"Sebastian, are you just going to stand there?" Leopold eyed the boy with something a little akin to repulsion.

"...I'm sorry..." Sebastian couldn't stop himself from letting those two words out anyway, the ones he knew wouldn't matter in the slightest.

Squad Leader Leopold sighed.

"You need to center yourself, boy, or you won't last long. Thank your stars that I was fast enough to save you just in time."

"Yes, sir."

"You're going to need a new horse...hmm..." Leopold turned, "Wendel, get over here!"

A scream bellowed through the air, a rushed scream that was swiftly cut short, and the sickening snap of a broken, dead body slamming into the ground soon followed. It was like a twig breaking in half, which made it only all the worse. It was a sound that dug like a knife into the heart of anyone who heard it. Sebastian choked. One of the other men had already been killed, fighting to his last breath against an enemy that far outclassed him.

"Kill it! Let's kill tha' damn son o' a bitch!" the woman from the countryside whom Sebastian had spoken to earlier, she was now flying off her horse with swords drawn. He wanted to cry out to her and tell her she didn't have to do this, but he knew that would be the worst lie ever told. He watched her propel herself through the air. He hoped he would see her come back down again, alive and well. Maybe she would even be the lucky one to land the killing blow. That would have been nice.

Wendel hurried over in a rushed gallop, holding onto the reigns of Leopold's horse that trotted beside him. The mohawked man's features were drawn tight with trepidation, his light mood left behind back inside the safety of the walls. Considering the vast list of reasons to be accurately feeling this way, Sebastian couldn't blame him. However, unlike Sebastian, Wendel still seemed to be keeping control over his mounting fear. He was concerned, sure, but it appeared to be more so for his comrades' safety than being attacked by more Titans.

"What is it, sir? I brought your horse back. Raimond and Ursula are keeping watch for signs of approaching Titans, as you'd instructed. We've fired off our own flare, and we're waiting for a reply from the other units."

"I'm going to need you to take Sebastian with you on your horse." The Fifth Squad Leader instructed.

"What?!" For a brief moment, Wendel's rebellious side popped up again. Leopold was ready and waiting in time to beat it back down with a shovel.

"You're going to do it. The Titan killed his horse."

Wendel let out a long-drawn sigh. "Yeah...yeah, you're right..." he gave Sebastian a flick of his neck, "Get on."

Sebastian had only just gotten his foot into the saddle's stirrup when he stopped momentarily to observe the ongoing battle against the Abnormal Titan. Gripped in its right hand was the severed upper half of a soldier Sebastian had never met. His waist and legs were strewn in bloody chunks on the ground, alongside the broken remains of his maneuver gear. The country girl hurled herself through the air, like a human bullet, and her blades sliced effortlessly into the muscles of Titan's wrist, forcing the hand to go slack and drop the rest of the dead soldier. She swung around in a wide arc, intending to go after the Titan's neck. Its other arm was already dangling limp, and in the few seconds left before the limb finishing regenerating, she was looking to end the whole thing.

"That Titan's movements...they're almost too good to even be considered an Abnormal's..." Leopold made as a passing comment.

The Titan reared its head back, and, Sebastian could have sworn it, its eyes briefly glanced at him, and their stares met. Like one human being to another.

The giant, man-eating monster started to screech; a powerful, resonating blast of sound that instantly forced the remaining soldiers to slap their hands over their ears. The young woman was forced to disengage her gear, the shock-waves of the scream sending turbulent vibrations through the wire. The wire itself dislodged, and before she could go spiraling completely out of control, the young woman curled herself into a tight sphere. She hit the ground and rolled forward, but remained stationary upon stopping. Sebastian hoped that she was alright.

"What was that...? Shit! Some sort of death-cry? Bastard nearly blew out my eardrums!" Wendel swore as he removed his hands from his head.

Leopold, however, was looking everywhere except at the Titan. "No, hold on. That screaming it did...those weren't even howls of defeat, but...maybe, like a wounded animal, it was a cry...for help?"

Sebastian and Wendel looked at each other. Soon, the ground began to shake, and they could hear the distant thundering of many giant footsteps.

"Titans incoming!"

Another flare was fired into the sky.

"We have to get out of here!"

"Retreat! Retreat!"

"Shit, they're really running! Don't tell me they're ALL Abnormals!"

Six Titans were steadily approaching the group's position from the West, all of them standing over 8 meters. The Abnormal Titan that had called them was beginning to rise up again. The country girl was unsteadily pushing herself up off the ground, but it appeared she'd broken something valuable, as she remained doubled over in pain. Sebastian could do nothing but stay back and watch, feeling more worthless than he'd ever had, as the Titan stomped her into the ground, an act of revenge against its attacker. When the Titan removed its foot, the girl had been reduced to a bloody pancake. Sebastian turned his head away.

"We need to retreat! We...we must go into the forest!" Leopold proclaimed, thrusting his sword in the direction of the woods.

"The forest? Are you crazy?"

"It's our only chance! We have no chance against these Titans; we need to put more distance between ourselves and them, but staying out in the open will only leave us exposed! By taking refuge in the forest, we can force them to lose track of us, and once we've either picked them off one by one, or better yet avoid them altogether, we can properly retreat back to the walls! Right now, though, there's nothing else we can do! We either take a risk and possibly live or stay here and die right now!"

The Abnormal Titan was lumbering toward the remaining soldiers, particularly Leopold, Wendel and Sebastian. For reasons unfathomable to the three men, although it may have just been a coincidence within all of the chaos, this Titan seemed unusually engrossed in attacking Sebastian. It had killed Sandra and several other soldiers, but in all cases it had been an act of self-defense. The Titan even saved Sebastian by killing the first Titan that appeared. It was an Abnormal, so of course its actions were illogical to the human mind, but it must have been interested in the young man this entire time. Sebastian wished he knew what would have made him so special; he wasn't anything special at all, just an idiot who'd chosen to join the Survey Corps. out of respect for his dead brother.

"Raimond! Ursula!" Leopold called over the other two members of the Fifth Squad, and they were soon regrouped together once more. They hardly looked any better for wear than Wendel did.

"We are heading into the forest! If you have any qualms about that, speak up now!"

"I have nothing to say, sir. I trust you completely." Raimond shook his head.

Ursula simply nodded in agreement.

Leopold climbed onto his horse and gave its reigns a powerful tug. The equine lifted its large body upward and kicked its front legs in the air.

"Let's go!"

With their Squad Leader at the front of the charge, the four horses darted toward the forest, a sea of trees taller than buildings, and hopefully they would manage to hide themselves well in here. Sebastian, clinging himself onto Wendel's horse, looked back one last time. The Abnormal Titan was following him with its black, empty eyes. It had stopped in its tracks for some reason, but its hand still remained outstretched, like a lover begging she would change if he would just come back to her. It looked so sad, almost pitiful, in a twisted sort of way. The other Titans were on the last-mile run, but by the time they would likely arrive at the mouth of the woods, the Fifth Squad would be long gone. As the trees began to enclose around them on all sides, Sebastian's view of the Abnormal Titan disappeared, and he looked ahead once more.

For a time, there was only a silence, one that quietly matured between the five soldiers. Not only did they need a moment to calm themselves, but they also needed a moment to think. What they were in right now was nothing less than one of the worst possible scenarios. Their mission, a simple one at that, had been compromised by a sudden and unexpected attack. An entire squad, leader and all, had been wiped out, a single Titan of Abnormal status credited with the work. With more Titans incoming, they were forced to retreat deeper into enemy territory without any way of properly informing Commander Erwin Smith or the rest of the main forces. In the forests, they had the trees to use to their advantage when operating the maneuver gear, but it also went in the opposite direction, where the Titans could use the terrain as cover to sneak up from behind. Their fuel was finite, and their horses would surely need rest soon. If they went too deeply into the forest, they would not be able to find their way back, and they'd be effectively left for dead. The amount of things that could go wrong at this point were on a list so long that it would have ran a mile.

"Ursula..." Leopold suddenly spoke, and the sudden intrusion of his voice was enough to surprise his companions, "Do you see any Titans?"

"No, sir." Ursula quietly replied.

"Any following us? What about that Abnormal Titan?"

"No, sir."

"Good."

Raimond pat the sheathe strap over his chest. "What should we do next, sir? How far should we go?"

"Those Titans are probably going to be waiting, expecting us to come out of the forest again. That Abnormal one, I don't know how, but if it can call in reinforcements with its cries, then it may be safe to assume it can lead the other Titans as well. It could be planning something else to out-flank us and capture us. We have to keep on our toes and stay on guard at all times."

Wendel shook his head. "Where the hell did a Titan like that come from, though...? It just, it killed all of those people, just like that...it fought more like a human than anything else..."

Sebastian had noticed that too. It seemed so strange. Titans had been noted time and again to bear a shocking resemblance to human beings, but they did not share any other similarities apart from that; they were mindless, stupid beasts without sexual organs and driven by a unnecessary desire to devour humans. Because of that, it was extremely difficult to link any sort of possible connection, genetic or otherwise, that human beings and Titans might share. We didn't know how Titans' brains worked, or whether or not they were evolving and gaining intelligence...they didn't know anything at all.

"Shit! What was that?" Raimond exclaimed rather loudly, his head whipping to the right.

"What is it?"

"It's...it's a Titan! I think it's moving for us!"

"How large is it?"

"It looks about 5...no, 4 meters!"

"Can you take care of it, Raimond?"

"I think so, sir."

"Kill it quickly, before any more show up!" Leopold ordered.

Raimond gripped around the handles of his blades. "Alright. I'll be quick."

Firing a wire into the tree beside him, Raimond was ripped off of his horse, which continued to gallop on without him. Sebastian had to watch how the older man intended to combat this Titan. Raimond Hartmann was large, bigger and buffer than your usual soldier on the front-lines. The Vertical Maneuver Gear allowed the user to take flight, but it required a certain balance of weight. While the wire was designed to be sturdy enough to fling something of a human's weight through the air without much trouble, it still depended on its overall weight on how fast and how far it could move with the wire-and-gas system. Raimond appeared to be 6 feet tall, likely over that, but he was also a large man, constructed from over two hundred pounds of muscle. How he could manage to fight Titans when speed was so necessary was something Sebastian wanted to find out.

Raimond threw back his cloak and reached behind him. With one hand firing another wire to fling him a couple dozen more feet, he used his other hand to unsheathe what he had been concealing up until now. A white sword, massive in width but short in length, like a butcher's knife. Raimond gripped the sword in front of him as he fired the wire again. The Titan he had spotted earlier was on all fours, ready to pounce and salivating like a starving dog discovering its fist morsel in days. Raimond reared back, his sword lifted over his head, and throwing his weight forward, he came down upon the Titan in an instant. He swung forward, and flipped over the Titan to dodge its snapping jaws, which instead came in contact with the man's sword. His giant blade cleaved through the Titan's face, splitting it open in one bloody splash. Whipping around as he passed over its ruined head, Raimond fired a wire to latch onto the Titan's neck, which he cut open with another slice of his huge weapon. The Titan's neck wasn't just sliced, but completely severed from the rest of the body. Still, Raimond had struck exactly in the right spot, and the giant creature collapsed in a smoldering heap. It only took a fraction of that time for Raimond to rejoin the others on his horse once more, his bearded face splattered with steaming blood. He hardly looked like he'd broken a sweat.

Sebastian felt like he could finally breathe again; he hadn't realized he'd been holding it during that entire scene.

"Raimond's a pretty big guy, as you must have noticed," Wendel explained, "He was so desperate to join the Survey Corps, they had to let him in after he showed how good he was with cutting. He paid a few hundred extra to get his maneuver gear customized and a big sword made with extra thick anti-Titan steel so he could cut to his heart's content. Ain't that the way, Raimond?"

"Heh, don't go telling the kid my whole life story," Raimond smeared some of the blood onto his sleeve to clear his face.

"That Titan was a small one, but it surely isn't the last one we'll see." Ursula noted.

"If we can minimize the number of Titans we encounter to one or two at a time, we should be fine, at least for a while,"

"As long as we don't use too much fuel, of course,"

"Shit, I forgot about the fuel too...well, I hardly used much just now, but depending on how things go..."

"Keep a look-out for more Titans!"

Leopold suddenly stopped his horse, and with a wave of his hand, the others followed suit. He glanced around, surveying the surrounding area, likely in search of more Titans. Once he was finally satisfied, he turned to his four companions. He gave them all a curt nod. Even in dire situations like this, he was a man who managed to keep his head on straight.

"We will stop here to rest. We'll hitch up our horses and take to the branches above to rest, regain our strength and plan out a strategy."

"What if more Titans appear?"

"We'll kill them if we have to, but to protect ourselves, we must avoid as much confrontation as possible. We cannot stay long, our time is limited, or else we will find ourselves having to camp overnight, and I believe that none of you wish to have that be the case, correct?"

Alesha only found the chance to ask her question as she stood shyly in a bathing room, the long-haired redhead from before drawing a bath for her. She dipped her hand into the water to test the temperature, but then looked over her shoulder to flash the younger woman a gentle smile. She reminded Alesha of her mother, in a curious sort of way. Alesha couldn't quite put her finger on it, but this woman had a 'motherly' aura about her, maybe it tied into her age. She appeared to be in her late 30s or mid 40s, but there was not a single gray hair present in the numerous strands making up her wavy hair. Then again, Alesha was the last person to consider herself a judge on such qualities.

"Haven't you heard of the word before, Alesha?" the motherly woman asked, her voice soft like a feather wafting in the breeze, and it caressed the teen's ears. Still, her mind was slightly overwhelmed by the high amount of events that had occurred since morning. She couldn't formulate thoughts too well.

Alesha shrugged. "I might have, but I don't remember, and Sullivan didn't tell me anything about it along the way."

"You don't always have to rely on Sullivan; he doesn't know everything in the world, I can tell you that much." retorted the red-head.

"He's the one who taught me, so nearly everything I know, it's because of him!"

"Do you like him?"

"What?" Alesha nearly jumped.

"I asked if you like him? Does he treat you well?" the red-head explained.

Alesha's cheeks started to tingle with rising heat. "I do, and does...I think..." Sullivan had acted very peculiar in the past few hours, since he first picked her up from the doctor's home. Still, it had seemed to her that he did care about her. He was a good person, Alesha had convinced herself of that before, but now that she was being put on the spotlight for it, she didn't know what to think. Sullivan cared, yet at the same time, he wanted Alesha to join the rebellion almost as badly as Galfe did. The red woman laughed heartily at Alesha's obvious look of discomfort on her face.

"Oh, never mind, I'm sure he does, and I'm glad if he does. He's been a little off lately these past few days. His father must be really getting to him, wearing out his circuits, so to speak."

"Um...what about the adoption...?" Alesha hadn't given up on her original query just because the conversation had been turned to her former teacher.

"Oh, right, sorry about that," the red woman laughed again.

Alesha didn't think this woman was trying to be malicious, but she was starting to raise an eyebrow for the teen.

"I'm not sure if Galfe would be happy if I told you beforehand, but it doesn't seem like you're going to let it go until I say something."

"I don't think I can."

"Okay, okay - gah!" The red woman ripped her hand out of the steaming tub, waved it a few times, and gave her nails a prolonged inspection.

"Uh..."

"Alright, I'm going to tell you a few things here, Alesha. Your purpose here is something you weren't specifically needed for, not at first. We could have used just about any boy or girl around your age, but Galfe had said he was impressed you'd managed to nearly outrun the Twitchers with your bare feet. Sullivan also recommended you when he heard you were in Doctor Klein-Sein's custody. So we're putting a lot of our faith in you, because this 'adoption' thing is going to help us gain information about Utopion that we never knew before. There's going to be some risk, but you seem like a smart girl; you probably won't screw up, as long as you're careful."

"What am I going to have to do?" Alesha didn't want to raise her voice, but her impatience was waning. It seemed like everyone in this rebel group liked to jump around the topic, never answering any real questions. They might have picked it up from their leader.

The red woman smiled, her lips soft and plump, like tangerine slices. "You lost your mother, didn't you? Well, now we're going to find you a new family, on the other side of the wall."

Alesha was silent for a breathless moment.

"What does that mean?" she asked with a bit of a hitch in her voice.

"It means what it means. How much do you know about Utopion?"

Alesha shook her head. "Not much. I know that it is the capital, the Twitchers came from there, and that the people are very wealthy."

"Exactly. In fact, we know only a little bit more than you do when it comes to our own country's capital. We can barely gain information on the enemy because of the wall, the Twitchers, and Utopion's own security systems preventing us. Most of all, Galfe has a feeling that the winds of change are approaching, and they're blowing from the direction of Utopion's highest office of authority. We need to act before it's too late."

Alesha could only stand there and blink.

"What we did find out, it's why we needed a kid like you. We need you to go inside Utopion and become our spy for us. None of us can do it, the Twitchers will either know we don't have clearance or they've already recorded our faces into their data-banks. You were seen by the Twitchers too, but as long as you have the proper clearance from the authorities, then they won't attack you. You can become the rebellion's eyes and ears inside the capital."

"So the adoption ties into this?"

"You've never heard of him, but a man named Tanner Rolock and his family are coming out here in four days, from Utopion, in search of adopting a wayward child of the streets into their home."

"Tanner...Rolock?" Alesha cocked her head.

"He's actually quite influential in Utopion, if you can believe it. Galfe will fill you in more about him. We don't know entirely what he would be planning to do, since we've never had anyone from Utopion ever come out to our side of the fence in years. Galfe believes it has something to do with PR, public relations."

"Oh."

"Not that it's going to help anyway. We already hate them. Showing that they 'care' by taking one kid out of hundreds of dozens with them isn't going to change a thing." The red woman's features briefly hardened, and her beauty was masked under tense stress lines and clenched teeth. Suddenly, she relaxed again.

"Still...it's helpful for us, though; it's a chance we can't pass up. That's why we intend to make you that child that he adopts. That's what Galfe intends for you."

So that was what was supposed to happen with her; she was going to be used as a spy, a double-agent, inside the city of Utopion. Galfe could have told her that himself, but he seemed to enjoy keeping his secrets for as long as possible. Alesha would have taken the offer immediately had she been properly informed in the first place, then. Getting inside Utopion was her goal all along. Even if she was required to send information back to Galfe, she would also be able to live her life amicably in wealth and splendor. Once the rebellion went underway, their little country would be made all the better. Either way, it seemed like a win-win situation. Alesha's thoughts went back to her poor mother, her corpse left violated and unable to receive a proper burial. She'd tried, and failed, to get help, but she'd been forced to leave it behind. The youth blinked tears out of her eyes; she had been afraid her worthless life would have played out the same sequence of events as her unfortunate parent, lying on her back several hours a night for nothing but a fistful of near-worthless bills. But now, thanks to Galfe, she'd been given another chance.

The red woman looked back at the tub. "So what do you think of all of that? Are you still willing to go through with this?" she asked, in spite of already knowing the answer.

"I'll...I'll do it. I'll do what I can."

"That's a good girl. I knew we could trust you." The red woman dipped her hand into the bathtub, "Hmm, the water's gone warm, it should be good enough now. Take off your clothes."

Alesha blushed.

"You aren't going to impress everyone looking as dirty as you are, and I hope you know it. Your hair is full of tangles and knots, your face is coated with all of the dust from outside, you probably haven't washed behind your ears in ages if ever, and you honestly stink worse than a cat's carcass on a humid afternoon. I didn't say anything before because it wouldn't have been polite in front of the others, but now that's it just us two ladies here, I can finally get to work on cleaning you up! So strip already. You're going to need to be scrubbed down."

"Ah...uh...o-okay..." Alesha started to lift her shirt up over her stomach, but the embarrassment of it all held her like a vice-grip; she'd never been naked in front of anyone before aside from her mother. The fact that this woman was mother-like did not really help the matters any.

The red woman stood up and brushed off her knees, and her hair billowed down her back, a bright and luscious-colored red. She faced Alesha just as the teenager had thrown her shirt onto the floor, causing the younger woman to leap two inches off the floor. The red woman gave Alesha a quick look-over, from head to toes. Alesha tried not to meet eyes with her. She could almost feel those eyes slithering over her, taking in everything, from her faint curves to every single pore. In fact, it literally DID feel like something was touching her. There was prickling sensation that zipped along the surface of her skin, like electric discharge, but Alesha accounted it to the chill of nudity. The red woman made a sound like a pleasant chirp.

"You're going to need a bit more work, but I'm willing to help you out. Oh! Oh no, I haven't even told you my name yet, have I? I wasn't expecting Galfe or Sullivan to provide you any proper introductions either. My name is Nannah. It's a pleasure to meet you as well as to have you working with us, Alesha."

"Thank you," Alesha replied in the most hushed squeak she could manage.

"Well, take off your pants too."

"Ugh..."

After being thoroughly doused, laundered and scoured down until her skin was pink and raw, Alesha had a pile of fresh clothes placed into her aching arms.

"Huh?"

"They're for you," Nannah explained, "You didn't think you would get picked up by our Utopion friend if you were walking in rags, would you? They may be trying to do a 'good deed', but they wouldn't want to take home someone who could leave marks on their imported fur carpets or their fancy glass vases."

"So, then..."

"Yes, they're yours. I have more clothes prepared for you. You're going to need to try out several different styles to see what works."

"What works?"

"What goes best with your look. Don't stress yourself, dear, I'm the one who will have to take care of all of that! Your job is to make sure you look like a cute little poster baby for dear mister Tanner."

Alesha stared at Nannah, then down at the clothes, and back at Nannah again. "How did you know that these clothes would fit me?"

"I don't know," Nannah shook her head, her face nearly getting lost behind all of that hair as it waved back and forth. "We don't have anyone your age or height working with us; we're all adults. I had these made just last night, when I'd first found out about you. It's a rough estimate, so they might hang a little, but I'll make you better clothes soon. Put them on, and I'll take you to your next destination. You must be exhausted."

Alesha nodded as she pulled the white tee over her head, nose filling with the scent of mothballs. "I am..."

"That's good, because Galfe had a room set up for you while we were busy in here. It isn't too far. "

Nannah led Alesha away from the bathroom, once the teen had dressed, and the two of them crossed through a hallway about sixteen feet past the first one. The ceiling and walls were some kind of sickly green, likely made with an unfinished mixture of clay, the numerous cracks and spiderweb-shape tears were more numerous than a colony of ants. The floor was pure earth. Alesha shuffled along in her new shoes; they were a size too large, but haven't not worn any footwear in ages, she was thankful enough that there was finally a layer of separation between her toes and the dirt.

A pair of men in shoddy clothes with even shoddier beards were sitting together in an alcove in the wall. When the one on the right raised his head to address the two passerby, a smile hampered by a number toothless gaps crossed his face.

"Nannah, you got a lot of beautiful hair there! Mind lending an old bastard a few locks so he can keep himself busy at night? Hah hah!"

From where she stood, Alesha could not properly witness the hand gesture Nannah made in response, but it was reliable enough to cut the old heckler short. His friend started cackling in his face, coughing up some spittle now and then. With a twist of her hips, Nannah continued on, and Alesha meekly followed a few steps behind her.

Their trek took them through another corridor after taking a sharp left, and the walls began turning back to earth as well, supported by a simple wooden framework that prevented the entire place from caving in. The scent of fresh soil had long since invaded her nostrils; Alesha could tell that they were well and truly underground now. A small chunk of dirt crumbled off of the wall to her right. Alesha could not help but wonder how, with their limited resources, that the rebels were able to construct such an elaborate maze of rooms beneath the city. There were lights, provided by candles, and surely there had to be a place where food could be prepared. They even had running water, considering that ferocious bath she'd just been subjected to.

"Nannah..." Alesha started to say. She was swiftly cut short.

"You don't have to say it. I know you're wondering about how we managed to make a place like this in the first place, when we hardly have enough food to keep ourselves from starving every day."

"I am."

"Actually, we didn't build this place. Well, we DID do a bit of touching-up here and there, repaired the plumbing so we got our water straight from Utopion's lines, replaced some of the wooden beams before they rotted away, but otherwise this place was already here when we found it. We don't stay here too often, it can really start to stink if we don't let it air out every few days if you'd believe it, but it's a handy home to keep on the side."

Alesha wondered just how much of that was the truth, and how much of it was a string of fabrications on Galfe's part. She might never learn the truth, but maybe she didn't need to; it's not like it was necessary, not like her upcoming mission.

Nannah delivered Alesha to her room not long after their brief conversation. They stopped in front of a nondescript wooden door.

"This is going to be your room. Sullivan's room is the next one beside you." Nannah pointed further down the hallway, but even if she had squinted, Alesha could not make out another door. It made her feel a little reassured, to know that he was close, but right now she couldn't say she was confidently sure of anything, least of all if her trust was well-founded in Galfe and his men.

"Yonah will come to pick you up in several hours, so you can take the time now to rest and get acquainted with your room." Nannah continued.

Alesha was not sure whom of the men and women she'd met at the beginning was this 'Yonah' fellow, but she assumed she would learn about it sooner than later. "I understand."

"Do you have any other questions?"

"Is there anything else you're allowed to tell me about my adoption?"

Nannah shook her head. "No, not really. Galfe had told me he wished to speak to you personally about your mission objectives tonight."

"Then I'm fine."

Nannah's hand reached out to lightly caress Alesha's cheek, like a mother would to a frightened child in an attempt to soothe.

"You're really not frightened about any of this? You were basically picked up off the street, after nearly being killed no less, and brought here without much of a say, weren't you?"

Alesha considered it for a moment. "N-No, It's fine. I'd agreed to this, Sullivan helped me understand it would be best. I want to help make our country a good place to live, just like the rest of you do. I'll do what I can." She wasn't going to mention wanting to live over the wall inside Utopion, though. That was probably best left excluded. However, it likely went without saying, judging by the look Nannah gave her.

Nannah's lips curled. "Okay, I believe you."