“…won’t make it like this out there.” I begin to hear voices as my consciousness returns to me.

“She will, but they’re going to…”

“Maybe… …needs to be taken care of.” I keep my eyes closed, able to hear what they are saying.

“There is nothing to ‘take care of,’ officer,” I hear Lucelle say.

“Ma’am, your friend here violated the law when she threatened the lives of over a hundred people.”

“Did you even listen to the witnesses? A god attacked her!”

“I’ve heard it before, Miss. Good luck getting that one to go through in court.”

“She is not going to court.”

“She was in Everencia’s jurisdiction when she nearly killed that boy.”

“’That boy’ claimed it was something else that injured him.”

“Typical sign of your friend’s witchcraft, ma’am. I’m reporting this up the chain. Expect the Lance Core to arrive shortly to detain her.” He starts stepping out of the room.

“Yeah, you know what? Fuck your authorities!” she yells back. I love Lucelle for that. I’m going to love her even more when she gets me out of this place. Everything in the room goes quiet, so I quickly blink open my eyes. I’m attached to some tubes and a needle is in my arm. I ache, but I feel fine enough to get out of here.

I shift, moving my arm to support sitting up. “Gods, get these off me.”

Lucelle turns to me, then instantly begins taking the apparatus away from me. “Thank the heavens you’re awake. Did you hear that? They want to imprison you for something you didn’t do.”

As soon as the needle is out of my right arm, I move my hand to clasp around her shoulder. “Listen, Lucelle. I wanted to slaughter them. I can’t keep doing thi-“

“Oh, shut up and let’s go,” she says, cutting me off. She finishes taking the tubes off and lifts me onto my feet. Funny, her looks are Elven, but her strength is Demonic. Before we leave the room, I take a look at my reflection in the window. Gods, I’m a monster now. The better half of my body has turned black and almost all of my hair is a silky white. Only about a quarter of my face, the top-left side, is still human. “Emily, come on!” Lucelle urges me, and I turn away to follow her. We run down white hospital hallways and when we reach the stairwell, I hear yelling behind me.

“Hey! Stop her!” the police officer shouts. I don’t look and push into the stairwell with Lucelle, flying down the steps four at a time. At the bottom, we throw ourselves out of an exit into a back alley behind the building. The buildings are so tall here, I had no idea. I saw them in the past reaching towards the sky, but I have almost never seen them up close. Everencia sure has surpassed the rest of the land.

“This way,” Lucelle whispers, pulling me away towards the far back end of the alley. We pass some people huddled around a burning barrel and continue on the edge of a pier overlooking the water. It’s just about to be nighttime and we probably have no clue where we are going. I begin to hear sirens in the distance- the police vehicles.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Lucelle.”

“Quiet!” A couple of lights and officers turn down the way we are going and Lucelle pulls me to a nook in between buildings. She presses me to her and keeps my mouth closed with her hand. With what magic I have, I cloak us in the darkness from our chasers. They pass right by, shining a flashlight in our direction before continuing. After they are gone, Lucelle pushes me forward and has me follow close behind her. “You can use your magic?” she asks.

“Uh huh,” I reply.

“Disguise yourself. We stick out way too much here.” I nod and focus an illusion over my body, changing myself to look like a regular, modern, teenaged girl with blonde pigtails. Lucelle switches herself to look like a tall man in a suit. “Stay close,” she says. We get through the pier and onto the street where we start heading for the mansion. Well, the place now known as the Lockian HQ. It’s a Special Forces operations house where my mother’s legacy is being carried on through quiet (and probably illegal) missions. Near it is a small bakery that I have a beacon room set up in.

A man in an overcoat steps next to Lucelle at a point where we need to cross a road. He whispers to her, “How much for the girl?” I don’t see what she does, but the man quickly backs off spouting “What in the gods' names?!” when she looks at him.

“Thanks for not selling me,” I jokingly say to her.

“I thought about it,” she says back, her voice being lowered like a male’s. We cross the street and pass more buildings. The night life is already beginning to liven up with the flashing lights and many bars. There are people lined up outside of buildings with extremely loud music playing inside that rattles my bones even as I’m walking away from them.

“Lucelle, what are all of them doing?”

“Those are called clubs, Emily. People go dance, drink, and party the night away because they aren’t happy with their home lives.”

I think about it for a moment. “I’m not entirely ha-“

“Shush, we’re almost there.” We turn a few more corners and begin lurking behind the giant headquarters. Lights flash against the pillars on the side and guards stand up on balconies with rifles in hand. Thankfully, they are not looking for us in particular as we pass by quite easily. The dimly lit bakery still has its doors unlocked, so we step right in to see the automated man standing behind the counter.

“Welcome, Emily and Lucelle,” he says to us, recognizing our signatures. We ignore him and pass right by to the back room where I press my hand to a wall panel. It shifts, then the hidden door slides open to reveal the beacon room. We quickly open it to go home and pass through the rift into the Void house. At last, finally home.

I drop the illusions over myself and step over to the table, but then feel Lucelle grab my shoulder and throw me against the wall. She pushes forward and stands in my way. “You need to get a hold of yourself, Emily.”

I feel my anger beginning to rise, so I stand as straight as I can. “Or what? Are you going to ground me?”

“All you are doing is thinking about yourself. How you can become bigger and better than you are. Is this what you want? To be more so that you don’t need us around? Is that why you went off on your own?”

“Do you even know me, Luce? I do what I do to protect all of you, not make myself better. I am the least I care about in this world!”

“It really doesn’t seem like it!” she yells, baring teeth. “You may think the life of a vigilante is the one you want to pursue, but your fall from grace is fast approaching, Emily. Think about that the next time you realize that there are people who care about you in this house!” She shoves my staff into my hands (I guess she kept it safe) and storms out of the room. I think about saying something back, but it’s not worth it right now. She’ll understand soon why I do the things I do; maybe not now, but soon. In the meantime, I have no intention of staying here tonight with her being so angry with me.

--

“Kicked you out?” Yhannason asks me at her door.

“Well, not really, but it’s not a good time for me to be home. May I stay here tonight, Goddess?”

“Of course, of course.” She gets out of the way and says, “Come in, please. Make yourself at home, Emily.”

I enter with my bag and staff. “Thank you, Yhanna, it means a lot. I don’t really look that well off to try renting a room anywhere right now, if you haven’t noticed.”

Under the white light from the ceiling of the entrance, my black skin shines in contrast to the pale in my face. “I saw. What happened to you? No, don’t answer that. Get yourself settled and I’ll get us some drinks and then you can answer.” I nod and go to the couch to sit down, placing my bag next to me on the floor. “There are some blankets by the entertainment center!” she calls from the kitchen. I get up to find them, then notice right away how soft they are. I could fall asleep just pressing my face to these. Instead, I grab a few and go back to the couch where Yhanna has already sat down. I go back to my corner of it and put the blankets down in between us, then pick up the glass she set out for me.

I swish the dark red liquid around in the glass, then take a big drink. Almost right after swallowing it, I feel a kickback in my throat. “Eugh, what is this?”

“That’s wine, child.” She sips from her own glass, then lifts her feet up onto the cushion in front of the couch.

“Oh. Sorry, I don’t drink alcohol,” I say to her as I start to set the glass down. With a hand, she stops me and prompts me to keep hold of it.

“Nonsense. You have so much stress in your life, it’s time you had yourself some time to just relax and stop worrying so much. Enjoy it, Emily. So, tell me what happened.”

I take another drink and the left corner of my lip twitches from the tanginess of the wine. It is bitter, but it does taste good. Kind of like juice made from grapes, though a bit stronger. “I was visiting my hometown and Eres showed up to enact revenge on me for what I did years ago.”

“Talk about a rough day, huh?”

“I know, and it wasn’t that great before that, either. He would have killed me and all of the people there if I didn’t do this to myself, but doing this just made my best friend angry with me. I can’t win, Yhanna; I don’t know what to do.”

“What you’re going to do is relax and let yourself go for a night. Drink, Emily.” I obey and take a few more gulps until the glass is empty. “Feel anything yet?”

“I feel worn out, if anything,” I reply. With that, Yhannason takes the bottle from the table and fills my glass up again. “Isn’t this a little suspicious, what you’re doing?”

“I’m a Goddess, not some Descentian succubus. This is a safe environment, trust me.”

I take another drink, feeling a bit more comfortable with the strength of the wine. “I guess so. How about you? How was your day?”

“All I did was paperwork for the tournament Argoncin and Death are working on.”

“Hm. What is Death like?”

She looks to me, then looks away. “Death works a lot with your father, you know.” I didn’t know that. I take a long drink, preparing for the story. “Death isn’t nearly as bad as you may think. It didn’t receive its title because it killed so many people or anything. It received it because of the people it spared. So many lives have been left to continue because it, which was once a wraith governing over the Pontiff’s Isles, knew that those people and animals had a future. Others didn’t, but they only died because Death knew it was their time. It was a… seventh sense, of sorts, that Death had which let it be so knowing. It was only natural for it to descend and become a god without the God title. I hope you get to meet it someday, Emily. I’m sure it would recognize you well.”

“What does it do with my father?” I ask, feeling the room begin to rock back and forth. My attention begins to draw away from her. I can keep focused on her, but everything else seems to be going blurry.

“Death does a lot of business with him. Usually, it’s about the lives you keep in the Void. Sometimes, though, it’s to discuss spirits that must have their lives extended for whatever reason. Your father helps with that part.”

I obediently finish the second glass and she goes to pour me a third. “Don’t drink too much or you’ll get sick, sweetie.” Sweetie, that’s funny.

I laugh. “Yhanna, you’re so funny.” I notice that I’ve begun to sway back and forth a bit, but I check it off to be because of fatigue. “What were we talking about again?”

“We were talking about Death.”

“Oh, I remember now. Sorry, it’s difficult for me to keep focus. Do you talk to Death often?”

“Not very, no. I’ve only actually met it perhaps one or two times. Any other time that we have talked, it was through someone else, usually Argoncin.”

My focus begins to diminish again as I think about the god. “Argoncin is such a busy person. I wish he could relax sometimes, too.”

“You feel relaxed, then?” she asks, to which I nod vigorously. “Good, we'll make this night much better for you."