Alchimia Rex (040 & 041)

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AN: Computer's a mess.

Anyway, enjoy the chapters! Another two special POV's as things keep tumbling forward.

[040] [The Enemy]

Rick woke to the sound of the alarm bells along Dia. He’d gotten into his boots and pants by the time she’d made it out the door. Half a second later she came back, eyes wide and hair wild. “Stampede.”

He blinked at her like a deer in headlights, brain stuttering as it attempted to catch up. “Ferals?” He asked, finishing his boots.

“Lots.” She declared. “Outside the wall.”

Well shit.

His first instinct was to ask if there was anything he could help with. But he was the guy supposedly in charge of this mess. There should be a protocol for this. Why hadn’t he set up a protocol for this!?

“Urtha is in command. Whatever fighters we have that aren’t fighting, get them to be ready to assist. And tell Whitneye to get his knights ready.”

“And the city?”

He hesitated. “What about it?”

Dia reached out, touching his arm. “Some might panic, and others might take advantage of the situation.”

“If Kiara thinks she doesn’t need to help in the fight, then she’s in charge of that.”

They shouldn’t need him giving orders, not when things might be well out of hand. But orders were better than no orders, command and control was better than chaos. Everyone should have a role, everyone should know what to do.

Another thing to the list, another item to review and consider.

“All of you, help however the tribe orders.” He commanded the Orcs standing guard near the house. “Monica will stick with me.”

The feline wasn’t too far away; she was hiding, her attention squarely on his surroundings. Why wasn’t she showing herself? Whatever the case, it didn’t matter, Rick secured the sword at his hilt and started moving.

Half a second later, he realized he’d been heading straight towards the fight, to Urtha. It was in her general direction that he could sense an annoyed urge to fight. Rick rushed towards the top of the city’s wall, his heart pounding in his chest as he finally started catching the sounds of battle outside.

There had been a few guards that half-heartedly tried to keep him from getting up there, and for good reason. But there was no way he’d let himself just sit and wait to find out if everything was going down the drain already or not.

As he reached the summit, he laid eyes on the scene before him.

It was like something out of a nightmare.

The Orcs were locked in a bloody fight with a sea of gray hair and fur. It was unlike anything Rick had seen before, the space between the forest and the castle had been blanketed with a frenzy of bodies, gray hair and round ears marked the ferals as Mousegirls, but their behavior wasn’t the meek little things he’d met in the workshop.

“What the hell!?”

Rick had been witness to a feral stampede exactly once, in Astunes. And even then, the ferals had been more worried with either running away or attacking one another. This looked more like an unified attack, trying to swarm and overpower the tribe and their improvised defenses.

Leading the tribe and the fight was Urtha.

Her gigantic metal club was like a scythe through wheat, every swing crushed and destroyed a handful of ferals at a time. But the Mousegirls pressed against her like waves of the sea, uncaring for their own lives as they lunged at the Orc with frothing mouths and sharp fangs. Claws proved worthless against Urtha’s hard skin, but the Mousegirl’s bite pierced through the green flesh, gouging out and leaving bloody red streaks on the green half-giant.

The fight looked chaotic and frenetic, yet Rick caught glimpses of order from the tribe. When Urtha slowed down, she’d retreat behind the other Orcs, allowing her fellow warriors along the wooden spikes and walls to take the brunt. The massive Orc leader would slow down, switching to poking with her club, the bleeding injuries in her body withering away until she was back in the fight again.

But the feral tide was stretching, wrapping themselves around the tribe’s poorly fortified position.

Rick’s hands clenched tightly as he watched the Mousegirls surrounding the forces from every direction. His mind spun with the question, should he call on the rest of the tribe and command them to bring aid? Would doing so put the city at risk? He wasn’t sure what he was looking at; the ferals were dying in droves, but how much longer could Urtha and the handful of Orcs outside the walls hold out?

Urtha was not calling for help either. Was it foolish pride? Certainty of victory?

The ferals only seemed to fight harder once they’d fully surrounded them. They would force more and more Orcs to turn away from the mass of ferals and attack those that had slipped through and sought to attack the farmers. The tide seemed unrelenting, corpses piling up by the dozen.

“Monica, please help them.” He glanced at the large feline that’d been staring at the ongoing fight through narrowed eyes.

She looked at him, then glanced at the other people near the wall. “Rick stay here.”

With her own command issued, Monica jumped off of the twenty meter wall with that overwhelming feline grace. She roared, a sound that chilled the bone and shook the air, yet the ferals didn’t even flinch, those closest to her swarming in her direction.

Unlike Urtha, Monica fought with decisive speed. She didn’t give the Mousegirls the opportunity to attack, rushing through them with a flurry of shadow-coated claws that would rip limbs and heads. The instant she was forced to slow down, she vanished into the shadows, emerging somewhere the ferals weren’t focused on, and attacking once more. Monica’s flickering presence caused the horde to stutter and stall, constantly shifting in search for the predator that would attack them from the angle they least paid attention to.

That was all the tribe needed, the Orcs regaining steam as their bodies got a chance to regenerate from the injuries. At first their defensive position was consolidated, but with every passing minute they ventured further out of the improvised fortifications. Until the ferals were no longer surrounding them.

Like a wall of green crushing power, the warriors spread out as far as they could to corral the ferals. The tide became a sputter, and the battle shifted from a desperate fight against an unending swarm into a gruesome game of whack-a-mole. He couldn’t even count how many feral corpses had been left behind, the stench alone made his gut twist into knots.

And through it all, the bond with Urtha sang with savage fulfillment. The large Orc being the one who presented the challenge over who’d get to kill the “last one”, foregoing her club and using stones to obliterate targets a dozen meters away.

Rick could only stand and watch, mind scratching like a broken record, trying to understand it all. The sheer scale of it had to be impossible. Where had all these ferals been hiding through the past few months? Why had they attacked now? He stared through wide eyes, looking at the forest, feeling as if they’d narrowly avoided a natural disaster.

What would have happened had the tribe not been there?

The sound of Dia’s gasp broke him out of the trance, he glanced over to the healer, her eyes wide in and mouth agape, leaning over to look at the gruesome sight.

“First time seeing something like this too?” Rick added a small forced chuckle to his words.

She hadn’t even glanced his way, making a quick gesture with her hands, a soft green glow spreading as she used one hand to hold her throat and the other her jaw. “DO NOT TOUCH THE DEAD!” Her voice thundered, almost as powerful as Monica’s earlier roar, nearly knocking Rick on his ass.

She turned to look at him, gaze not really locking on to his own. “This might be a disease. Do not get close to them.” The healer didn’t even wait for him to respond, turning around and rushing down the stairs, back down to the base of the wall, screaming for one of the minor doors to open and for them to call for every maiden capable of using fire.

The instant she was outside the wall, the healer was telling everyone (particularly Monica), not to touch or get near the bodies, and to gather up so that she could sanitize and disinfect them.

The spectacle of a five foot pink-haired woman telling the nine foot-tall murder-machines to sit down and not touch anything would’ve been more humorous had Rick found himself in a different state of mind.

Instead, he was left with a sour taste in his mouth, trying to consider the ramifications. If this was a disease, how should they respond? How could it affect the city? This wasn’t like the modern world he’d come from, sanitation was a joke, but they also had literal magical healing powers.

There were so many more things he needed to know, that he needed to prepare for.

The clanking of metal against stone told him of the approaching human. No maiden moved so noisily. Rick glanced over his shoulder to see Sir Whitneye as he stood at the top of the wall, eyes practically popping out of his head.

“What… what in the abyss is this?”

The four knights accompanying him remained at a respectful distance at the foot of the stairs.

“I don’t know.” It was the understatement of the century. “Have you ever seen ferals attacking like… this?” He motioned at the bloodied field. Dia had separated those who’d fought and been injured from those who had not.

Some part of Rick felt a smidge of pride at how not one farmer had been hurt. At least in this, it seemed Urtha, and the tribe knew what they were doing.

“The ferals have been abnormally aggressive, but never like this.” The man declared, twirling his mustache hard enough he might just yank it off. “My Lord, about the militia… we can’t-”

Rick jolted a little. “I will have to rescind my earlier kindness.” His hand gestured at the sea of corpses. “Forming a combat-ready militia is no longer a request.”

“Something to fight against ferals, certainly.” The man’s expression faltered when he met Rick’s gaze. “You… do not wish for it to be only ferals, do you, my Lord?”

Of course he didn’t, he wanted the city to make the Kingdom think twice before leading an army to their gates so they could squeeze Rick’s throat. But saying that out loud would get him killed.

“I want to be ready for anything.” He replied instead. “The Vampire Lords were using the Orcs as a tool to harm the Kingdom. Can you claim with absolute certainty they might not attempt to go after us? Or that the ferals today weren’t some sort of scheme?”

Truths hidden within lies and questions that could be taken as facts. Because truth detection was a thing, and Rick dreaded the day someone asked the perfectly wrong question.

There was a long silence from the man as he kept squeezing his mustache between his fingers, twirling it in thought. Wrinkled brows looked on to the death below. “What of the criminals, my Lord?”

Rick frowned. “Regarding the law?” He sighed a little. “I met with miss Arietta yesterday, she’s agreed to teach about the law so long as whoever volunteers to learn from her is up to her standards. Is there something going on with the city I should know?”

“Nothing too severe, my Lord.” Sir Whitneye quickly bowed. “The food has helped mitigate some problems.”

Some.

Rick wanted to strangle that word until it vanished from the dictionary. “The militia will have to work as law enforcement until things calm down. I’ll see what I can get going with the… judging part of the equation.”

Whitney nodded. “And the criteria for joining the militia should be…?”

“Anyone.” Rick snapped. “If they can hold a stick and they want to learn to fight, then teach them. No one gets turned down. Use the whole damn plaza if you have to.”

“But my Lord, if we intend to give them extra rations… there are only so much we can spare in supplies.”

The question Whitneye wanted to present was whether Rick was willing to just throw the food away. Because the Lord’s wishes were turned into gospel… until someone showed up to present their dissatisfaction with a big wooden stool.

“Then use the training as the filter. Everyone is welcome to join, but they need to prove their determination…” A moment of pause, then an inward flinch. “Nothing that would get someone seriously hurt or maimed.”

The old man’s mustache twitched as he nodded solemnly. “I will see to it.”

“Oh, and Sir Whitneye.” Rick gave him a slight smile. “Thanks.”

There was an invisible pressure on the older man’s shoulders that seemed to ease. He bowed his head. “It is only my duty, my Lord. Though if I may be so bold… I have one question I would wish to ask.”

“Shoot.” Rick paused, seeing the man’s confused expression, and sighed, rephrasing. “Ask away.”

“It is about one of your companions… Evangeline is her name, the pale maiden living in the Lightning-vault. There are concerns regarding her… alignments.”

Well, he couldn’t have claimed he didn’t see the question would come eventually. He’d just hoped it would be later. “Take a minute to look at the literal wildling tribe of Orcs that put their lives on the line to protect the city.” He pointed at the field outside, staring directly into the man’s eyes. “And then take another minute to consider how eagerly you ought to judge a maiden solely by their species.”

This time the man straightened out. “I am looking out for what’s best for the city.”

“Then talk to her. I think you’ll find Eva to be more aligned with the Kingdom and against the Vampires than anyone else here.”

It was clear his words didn’t convince the old man, as the constable reached down to touch his pocket with some apparent surprise. He didn’t make further comments, bowing and turning to leave, his knights joining him.

Alone again, Rick stared at the part of the tribe currently outside the walls. Most of the Orcs had been made to sit down, though Urtha remained the sole exception, standing with a proud naked blood-drenched chest as she held something up at the wall.

At him.

It was a feral’s head.

Rick was thankful they wouldn’t be able to see his face taking a greener shade at this distance. Part of him wondered whether this was just some other aspect of the “official” joining, some custom for the tribe meant to “show” they were working together. Or something.

A purely political marriage was not a concept he was fond of. But he wasn’t about to complain, Urtha had been eager to avoid him whenever outside of a public setting.

So he waved at her, inwardly relieved to see her getting cheers and hollers out of the other Orcs. The Orc champion preened, swaggering as she boastfully swung her free arm. The show came to a prompt end with Dia’s fast approach; the healer waving her arms wildly at them, pointing at the corpses and then at the severed head.

For once, Rick was thankful he didn’t have the sort of superhuman hearing that would’ve allowed him to pry into the details of the argument.

Unable to get anything else out of just standing atop the wall, he descended back to the streets, the Orc guards ensuring none would get too close as he headed to the gates. The sounding of the alarm had startled the city, many heads were peeking out, and seeing how the fighting had ended, many more were approaching in attempts to learn what had happened.

Somehow, Kiara was running panic control. Rick wasn’t too sure what she was doing, but the Succubus disguising as his “real” totally human wife was walking door to door, escorted by two burly Orcs, and reassuring everyone that the ferals had been dealt with.

He met her golden eyes as she gave him a small plastic gesture of greeting. She turned just as quickly, returning to her work. And Rick did the same, stepping out of the city through one of the smaller doors.

Even at a distance, the visage was more gruesome up close than from the safety of the wall. He placed a cloth against his mouth to cover the smell of death. But above all, he pushed himself not to look, marching away from the dead and keeping a healthy distance from it all, inspecting the area.

The ferals hadn’t even tried to approach the gate from the forest, they’d made a straight line for the budding farms.

What would’ve happened had they not seen the Orcs? Rick glanced up at the wall and the spikes, trying to imagine how the ferals might climb and get through them. At the time of the attack, the walls had been practically empty, unprotected. Whatever had been there would not have been able to slow down such ferals.

He still wasn’t sure how they’d get past the spikes. Though the prospect was concerning all the same.

“We need a moat,” he muttered, rubbing his chin and walking further away from the massacre.

Now that he thought about it, the other large cities he’d seen hadn’t had a moat either. Maybe he was looking at the problem from the wrong angle? What piece of information was he missing? Would a moat present a vulnerability to the city somehow? If it had worked in the medieval times in his world… Why wouldn’t it be here?

The puzzle helped get his mind out of more gruesome subjects.

Maybe a moat would present an easier way for the enemies to dig through their defenses, or maybe if the enemies had a strong maiden that used water as a medium…? Was that it? If the city didn’t have a powerful maiden that could take advantage of water, then the moat became a vulnerability against anyone that did?

Rick scratched his head, walking further away from the city and the scene of the battle, thinking. There was only enough of a stray thought for him to remain near the line of sight of his guards and the tribe as he mulled over it.

Over how this fight could’ve been done differently.

Over how they could prepare for the next attack, and every attack after.

The Orcs were too valuable a resource to risk, they currently made up the totality of the city’s military power. Over-reliance on that would get them all killed. And it wasn’t like Sinco had enough of a population they could just throw it away as a meat-shield.

So what did they have that could be spent? The question boiled at the back of his mind as he continued his investigation.

Rick found several bodies that’d been trampled beyond the point of recognition, so he gave them a very healthy berth while glancing from the city to the forest, and back. From where he stood, he couldn’t really make out the farms all that well, yet the city gates were plainly visible.

The breeze carried the smell of blood from the carnage.

The wind shifted, and the blessed stench of sulfur chased off the fresh death that’d been clawing at his nostrils. Rick walked to the nearest vantage point, to look at the farms, the city, and the forest. Something felt off about it all.

As if…

A shudder ran through him, a prickling sensation in the back of his neck making him spin and face the forest, eyes narrowed in search of the threat. But there was nothing there, just trees and bushes.

“Rick!” Dia’s voice called out, stern and angry as she marched up to him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

There were a lot of places he shouldn’t be in… not that he’d voice that little comment. “What’s the status?”

She came with the scent of smoke, the Hobgoblins of the tribe and some other maidens were now working together to burn the feral corpses. Most of them carried the bodies over to a growing pile further away from the city to do so. “I will have to run some autopsies on the few corpses that were mostly intact.” She kept the glare on him. “For now, I’m putting them in quarantine. You shouldn’t be out here.”

He ignored the reiteration. “I bet they’re not… What are you doing?”

Dia had stepped closer, hands glowing green as she pressed them against his chest and face. “Guess.” The absence of humor in her tone betrayed the nervousness more than the bond would have.

“Tell me.”

The simple command reassured her, the maiden relaxed ever so slightly, her touch softening. “I’ve never even heard of ferals doing something like this.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Feral Mousegirls often form hordes, but they don’t fight to their dying breath, not like this.” Her face contracted in a grimace. “If the city gets hit by some elemental disease…”

“That sounds nasty.”

The Rapha paused for a moment, looking at him. “You don’t know what it is.”

“Nope.” He tried to laugh, not finding the humor to make the chuckle an honest one.

With a sigh, she shook her head. “Empowered diseases are usually harmless to maidens, but…”

“Not to humans?”

She nodded. “They’re rare, but not rare enough. The last elemental disease emerged barely twenty years ago. With so many humans dying, bonds broke, and maidens began going feral left and right. I heard some kingdoms vanished entirely because of it.”

Rick shuddered a little. “Yeah, that sounds bad. You think this might be some new thing?”

“I don’t know.” Dia bit her lip, shaking her head. “A city the size of Sinco usually would have their own disease specialist, but most of the healers…”

He turned to the forest, brows furrowing. “Let me guess, feral attack?”

She followed his gaze, frowning, then back at him. “Is something wrong?”

“Tell them to spend the time improving their strategy. Something to do until that quarantine is over.”

Dia hesitated, eyes widening for a split second before her poker-face returned. “Fortunately Orcs can survive just about anything so long as they get the time to regenerate. “But regarding the farm…” She pointed at the land. “If it is infested, we… might have to burn it all.”

Rick’s back stiffened.

They could not afford to delay food production. But if it was a disease… He could almost hear the metaphorical wire growing taut, creaking as tension increased. At what point was the risk worth it? His lips curled. “How long would it take you to confirm?”

“Three days… if I hurry.”

“Tell the farmers to burn it all and start fresh right now.” It would only delay production by two days, that was within reasonable bounds. He just hoped it wouldn’t need a second purging. “The priority is making sure we’re not about to kill ourselves on some sort of plague. But we need that food, it’s our priority.”

With a sure nod, she turned towards the tribe, then froze, turning back to look at him. “What about Monica? She wasn’t injured, but I saw her lick her claw, and she was drenched in…”

Rick blinked.

“She’d need to be quarantined with the tribe.” Dia continued with a small grimace.

“Meaning our two strongest fighters and a good chunk of the tribe’s warriors are locked out of the city.”

“Also Monica ran off.”

Rick blinked twice. “What?”

“I told her she couldn’t go into the city for a while, she said she’d go on a ‘Big Hunt’, and ran off.”

He swore.

[041] [Simple Physics (Eva)]

The energy collection and conversion machine stood imposingly before Eva, its design a labyrinth of metal and enchantments. She felt a mix of admiration and sorrow as she studied the interweaving of symbols and sigils etched into its surface. Two days spent analyzing and writing down every facet of the device had left her with a deep appreciation for the genius of its construction. The mere sight of it made her chest constrict with a swirl of emotions.

There were just too many things that could be learned from the device’s structure, the way it was prepared to channel energy into the stones but also out of them. To destroy such a marvel was a crime.

If only she could find the one responsible for such a marvel…

“Ma’am?”

The voice came from below, Eva glanced at the source, the silver-haired Metalmouse stood there, waiting for orders. Rafaella led the Mousegirls, they stood in the center of the room, lines of chalk delineating the various sections of the device.

Eva turned down to the floor to remind herself the true purpose of the device. The thick metal shackles should’ve been the first they removed, they were the safest bit of the whole device. But the Fledgling had opted to leave it for last. Just looking at them made her shudder, breaking the spell of the beauty of the intricate enchantments all around her, it revealed the more insidious monster in the room’s purpose.

“We will begin with section 5E, the spokes need to be broken, but not removed.”

She pointed at the large wheel that kept the collection devices connected to one another. The Mousegirls hurried along, reaching to the iron cylinders and gnashing down on them. The sound of metal was like a beast crying out in agony.

Eva led the team, targeting the unifying components of the massive piece of magical engineering. One by one they cut through the components that sustained the flow of energy between each part. It was tricky; the design had considered the very structure keeping the pieces aloft as overflow routes in case of a component failure.

It was a surgical murder of beauty; it reminded Eva of plucking the petals from a flower until there was nothing but an ugly stem. The flower could still survive, but not for much longer.

Over the following hours they continued their work. Once the mechanism’s skeleton had been broken into separate components, their genuine work could begin. It was safer to target each part one at a time, carefully repeating the procedure to break them down into smaller pieces. Until they entirely isolated the components with the more dangerous energy loads from the system. Only then did Eva give the instruction to remove these pieces one at a time, checking and double-checking that each member of the team wore thick plant-leather gloves and boots to avoid accidental discharges.

They were leaving the most dangerous components for last, especially the flow gates at the very top of the room.

The more they killed it, the easier it was for Eva to shift her attention away from the device and to her helpers. The team was quiet and obedient, as one would’ve expected from Mousegirls. Ignorable, forgettable, always efficient, always precise. In her past life, she would’ve readily ignored them.

But now her eyes lingered on their milky skin and the rapid beat of their hearts, she could almost spot their pulse against the veins in their throats if she paid close attention. Eva’s throat was dry, the maiden swallowed, tongue poking at her fangs as they sharpened bit by bit.

“Miss Eva.” Rafaella interrupted the silence, standing in front of the Mousegirl the Fledgling had been focused on. “Is the Lord a good man?”

The question nearly knocked her off of her perch, the Fledgling held out to the nearest bit of metal and glared. “Gossip is a distraction.” She chided, glancing at the nape of the maiden’s neck. Hers had several small pale scars, almost invisible against her milky skin. Eva recognized them, having seen similar ones before, but couldn’t remember from what.

She wondered how the Metalmouse would taste, maybe…

“He seems like a good man.” The impertinent little rodent insisted, lowering her head just enough to intercept Eva’s gaze, meeting her eyes with a slight frown.

She looked away, taking a long swing from her waterskin. The liquid helped mitigate the thirst, but not as much as she would’ve preferred. Sooner than later she’d need to… “He doesn’t need someone like you. We should get back to work.”

Large round ears canted slightly to the side, her face wrinkling as she looked away. The maiden gave a few small chitters to the others; the Mousegirls returning to their work. Soon they’d managed to completely cut off pieces, dragging them off and down to the workshop. It slowed down the murder of the tower-sized contraption, if only a little.

Eva carefully tagged each piece with her piece of chalk, following Rick’s instructions of then writing the details of the piece in her book of notes. It was a novel idea, to notate every detail and fragment to ensure nothing could be lost. But to Eva, its use was grander, as it should allow her to create a blueprint of the original design for further study.

Shame near everything would be melted down and turned into far more mundane things… like farming equipment. Just the thought of it made her gag.

Using the shadows, Eva slipped into the upper corners of the room, carefully bending some of the metal fasteners until they broke. There was still some novelty to her inhuman strength, how easy her fingers could crush and rip things. Maybe being a maiden…

Shaking the thought away before it could form, she dropped the fasteners, proceeding to prepare one of the smaller sections. This was one of the important pieces she wanted to keep. It could prove a useful component for ensuring the wall could sustain multiple enchantment layers rather than be forced to accommodate a single engram… they’d just need to find someone able to put enchantments on it.

The irony wasn’t lost to her. As a human she’d felt jealousy of the maidens capable of imbuing their power into the beautifully complex enchantment patterns. The situation was no different now that she’d been cursed, as a Fledgling, she could only wield the blood aspect of shadow elemental energy.

Using that to enchant metal or stone would be like trying to make a house out of sand.

“Do you know the name of who designed this room?”

“Lord Thorley gave us the details of our work.” Rafaella answered tersely, pausing for a moment as she looked down at the shadows cast from the sunlight. “It’s time for lunch.”

“What? But we’re not done!”

The Metalmouse shrugged, reaching into her bag and pulling out little packages wrapped in leaves, handing them out to the others before she got a rusty metal rod and started chewing on it.

“Hey!”

As one, the group turned to look away from her, focusing on their own meal, ears folded downwards and rope-like tails tucked against their bodies. “Breaks are important.” One of the Mousegirls declared, unwrapping her portion and digging into the almond cheese almost reverently.

“Where did you even get that?” Eva tried to pry the conversation away from a total stop of their work. They weren’t done!

“The Lady gave them to us.” One of them spoke, preening a little. “You think she might be interested in a maid?”

Rafaella gave the mouse a shove. “You’re dirtier than the rest of us.”

“I heard she’s living in a small house with the Lord.”

“Probably fixing up the manor, you know how nobles get with their renovations.”

Eva blinked dumbly at the group as they broke into idle chatter and banter. “We have work to do!” She declared from her perch, glaring. “We’ve wasted enough days already!” Her next step missed its mark, slipping against the metal. She toppled over with a shriek, hand lashing out to grab at anything she could.

Fingers found purchase in the metal and squeezed hard enough to rend it. But not enough to completely break it off.

Hanging a handful of meters over the gathered maidens, she let out a sigh of relief.

“LET GO!” Rafaella screamed, eyes wide in alarm, a single gesture of her hand sending the Mousegirls scrambling to the door.

“What?”

It was only when Eva looked back up, feeling the tingling sensation of elemental power she realized exactly what she’d grabbed onto. A piece of the flow-gate, the central hub through where all the power coursed. The singular worst place she could’ve ever reached out to.

And she’d torn it.

Something sharp and heavy hit her head, the attack hard enough her grip slipped, falling.

Rafaella snatched her midair and bolted for the door.

The instant they’d made it through, the other Mousegirls slammed the door shut. They were half-way down the stairs when the explosion rattled the fortress. Dust and pebbles rained on them. Eva tried and failed to break free from Rafaella’s grasp, her body failing to obey commands.

“Let go of me!” She bit the Metalmouse’s hand once capable enough to move her neck in the proper direction.

The maiden yelped and dropped her.

There was a taste in Eva’s lips, of blood, copper, and metal wires. She quickly rubbed it off of her lips, throat tightening, fangs sharpening, red eyes fixating on the silver-haired maiden rubbing her bleeding hand.

“You’re a Fledgling.”

At her words, the others tensed.

“No, I’m not.” Eva scrambled back and away, eyes darting to the window, to the opposite door. She was outnumbered, but she should have enough of a chance to make it before they caught her.

A deep groan of wood filled the air, followed by the ominous sound of stone grinding against stone and rocks tumbling down. Everyone looked upwards with dawning horror as the tower shuddered violently, feeling the shifting under their feet as if the structure were leaning precariously to one side as the roof creaked and splintered, raining down pieces of shattered wood.

In an instant, a massive shadow blotted out the light from the eastern windows, bringing with it a cloud of dust that swirled and settled in its wake. The crashing that followed was like the death knell of the tower, the sound of a noble beast collapsing to the earth.

But the groaning didn’t stop, nor the raining of stones atop their heads.

Eva’s heart pounded in her chest as she realized what was happening. “The tower is…”

Part of the tip had fallen, yet the rest was collapsing onto the floor right above them. She could almost feel the weight of it bearing down on her, like the chain reaction of a shattering overcharged spell.

Rafaella was the first to bolt for the door, yanking it open for the others to follow. Eva didn’t waste a second and plunged into the shadows, emerging at the lead as they scrambled down another flight of stairs, feeling the fortress shudder violently as the floor above failed to hold the weight.

The tower groaned and shifted again, as if trying to shake off the destruction that had befallen it. Eva stumbled, her feet slipping on the debris scattered across the floor, scrambling back to her feet right as they made their way down to the main hall.

A series of crashes followed, the roof beginning to cave in and bend, sinking lower and lower, too quickly. Behind her, the Mousegirls screamed in terror, trying to push as fast as they could.

They would not make it in time.

“Hold on to me!” Eva commanded, leaping back into the maidens and pulling on the power of the surrounding shadows. A dozen hands latched on to her with bone creaking force.

Without thought or consideration, she plunged, cold suffocation awaited her as she pushed forward with everything she had. A split second later, they emerged twelve meters further ahead, thrust out of the shadow with explosive force, throwing them all out of the fortress as it finished collapsing.

Eva was yanked and dragged along by the others as the tower continued to collapse, dust and debris clogging the air, reducing everyone into a severe coughing fit as all around them the city broiled with activity.

Numbly, the Fledgling stumbled to her feet. She was hungry, starving, all her energy spent from that jump, and there was food right there. Red eyes glinted, the dust of the collapsed building couldn’t hide the scent of scrapes and bleeding. There were meals right there waiting for her to-.

“Eva.” An icy chill ran down her spine, a heavy hand falling on her shoulder and spinning her around, trapping her within the warm embrace of something that smelled delicious beyond measure.

It was Rick, his scent impossible to miss, a cape pulling her into the comfort of shadows. The taller man practically vanished her into the cloak, secreting her away from prying eyes. The Fledgling’s heart fluttered as she took in his mouth-watering scent. Her pupils dilated, taking in the shape of his veins running up his arms and neck, protected by nothing more than thin cloth and meaningless plant-leather armor.

So many places to bite, so many places to drink from.

“Eva.”

It was another chill, dangerous. It held no warmth; it was a warning, the man’s fingers digging through her hair and pulling her head up so they could meet eye to eye. Yet it was on his lips where her focus fell upon, the tiny twin scars on his lips, caused from a stolen delectable kiss in a warm beach.

His fingers tightened. “Evangeline.” He growled now, looming over her with that same wild force of presence of the white-haired monster that pretended to be a house-cat. That feeling that made her heart attempt to tattoo themselves against her ribs.

“R-Rick.” She stammered, now meeting his gaze and unwilling to look away, unwilling to move and risk reaching out to lay claim to the nectar flowing through him.

“You need an actual meal.” With that declaration, she was shoved away and back into the blinding sunlight. “Feed her.” Rick commanded the Orc that caught her stumbling steps.

Both maidens let out disgruntled noises.

The taller one out of annoyance.

The smaller refused to admit hers had been out of disappointment.

A single thick thumb was all the green-skinned brute offered Eva. Humiliation and anger burned in her face as she suckled the coarse digit. The blood tasted of dirt and grass, with an aftertaste of sunshine. It clogged her throat with the elemental energy it contained, but the meal was no different to spicy oatmeal.

It was just wrong.

That she had to reopen the wound every other second didn’t make it any more appetizing either. By the end, Eva barely had the presence of mind to give a half-meant ‘thank-you’ as she tried to regain her bearings. The scene before her was a nightmare of stone, wood, mortar, and steel, bent and arrayed in chaotic whimsy all over the plaza.

Blood drained from her face.

The whole fortress tower had collapsed, what they left of its pristine white walls was little more than grayed out stumps protruding from the center, surrounded in bits and pieces that were impossible to determine where they belonged.

Rick stood in front of some maidens, Kiara at his side along with a handful of Orcs, and the Mousegirls. Seeing him turn to the Mousegirls, Eva rushed ahead, hurrying to the front of the group. “It was my fault.” She declared before anything else could be said, bowing. “I should’ve-.”

His hand fell on the back of her head, ruffling her hair. “Then you get to write up the report on how to prevent it from happening again.” With a casual nudge, he pushed her a step aside, glancing at the Mousegirls. “Focus on rescuing anyone that might be hurt, second priority is removing anything that might be dangerous.”

“That’s it!?” Eva’s face burned, hands clenching. “I bring down a fortification worth countless hours and resources, and I just have to write some report!?”

There was a single breath of absolute silence, all around her all too suddenly there were too many eyes focused on them. Eva’s heart clenched at the realization of what she’d just done. Right there, in public, she should know better than this, but…

The sound of Rick’s laughter jolted her, the young man reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “It was an ugly piece of crap, and we can reuse the materials for the farms. I’m more worried over someone getting hurt.” He gestured at the rubble. “If you’re that eager to ‘repent’, then help clean up the mess.”

Eva opened her mouth to complain, but Kiara stepped in. “Do not admonish yourself for a mistake that was clearly not your own. Lord Thorley had built the contraption without care for the city’s safety, it’s a miracle it lasted this long without an accident of this magnitude.” Her voice was raised so that everyone could hear, the Succubus in hiding stepped closer to Rick, reaching up to caress the scar on his lip. “Besides, we both know how he prefers to dispense punishments… privately.”

The Fledgling found her mind reeling with wide eyes, quickly hiding her shock.

Rick himself seemed oblivious to the thoughts stampeding through Eva’s mind. The Succubus must have found out about it somehow! The Fledgling felt her stomach fluttering with anger and frustration, hands clenching tightly at the sight of the lecherous monster’s smug knowing grin.

“I will do as the Lord commands.” She snapped a salute, clicking her heels and marching off before she could dig herself further into shame.

Eva missed the thoughtful look in Rafaella’s eyes that trailed behind her.

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