“Ugh, what the hell?” The assassin beneath me groaned, but I had reached the end of the fucks I had to give. I wiped out three daggers consecutively and stabbed them into his neck and wrist sleeves, and then pulled out two more for his thighs, effectively pinning him to the ground using only his clothes and the daggers. Lucky for me, the cloth was not assassin dagger proof, as these daggers were diamond-edged and were able to stab through anything, including stone. 

I flipped off the struggling fiend and took in what I was dealing with. One pinned-down assassin, and two more assassins trying to wrestle what looked like a young cat girl to the ground. 

I saw someone had dropped a riffle on the ground and I scooped it up, running my hands over the barrel as I ran towards the commotion.

No ammunition, but still hot, so it had been recently fired. That means the group had seen the werecat from some way off and had shot the girl down in an attempt to slow her down and then came running to capture her.

This meant that 1) the rest of the party was still some way off, buying us sometime and 2) these assassins were idiots as only idiots who carried rifles would break off into small groups of three and think they could pacify a werecat on their own. 

The two assassins looked to be mostly human, which was fine until I noticed the familiar bulge at the back of their suits - restrained body parts. It could be wings, or it could be -

Just as I was closing in on them, a large scorpion tail slipped out from one of the assassin’s jackets and came down rapidly on the struggling werecat between the two assassins.

“No!” I exclaimed, but I was still too far away to stop the descending appendage. 

I growled and pushed myself to run faster; however, I was still too slow.

Then, just as the poisonous tip reached the girl’s chest, her legs flew up, grabbed the stinger with her feet, and pushed it straight into the chest of the other assassin, causing the two of them to spring apart. 

The werecat flipped back to her feet and growled, looking at her assailants and then finally settling her eyes on me. 

“Crystal?” I gasped, finally recognising the werecat before me. What good luck! The last High Breaker was right before my very eyes. 

A grin broke out on Crystal’s pretty face, displaying her canine prominently. 

“Let’s bust out of here, baby!” Crystal yelled and turned on her heels, and started to make a run for it. 

The assassin who got stung lay on the ground, groaning. Scorpion stings were painful and also had sedative properties, so at least that guy wasn’t going to be an issue any more. 

The scorpion, on the other hand, was perfectly fine but also looked distraught as he scrambled to his feet and kept looking between his fallen comrade and his runaway captive. 

I wasn’t giving the scorpion a second chance to get at Crystal. I crouched low, using the few seconds where the scorpion still had not noticed me to my advantage and ran straight to him with the butt of the rifle tucked under my armpit out of sight.

Once I was in the scorpion's preferential vision, I knew it would be seconds before I was met with the same face as his buddy over there on the grass, so I made a point to keep just out of striking range but in clear sight of his chin.

The scorpion’s head whipped around, his eyes growing wide as he realised I had popped out of nowhere.

“A-Alaina?” The scorpion asked, and I snorted. Yeah, everyone knew the kids of the great Winter family, blah blah, and yet it’s these very adults who didn’t lift a finger to save us from a life of servitude. 

“What motherfucker?” I asked, and once I was at a 45-degree angle of his chin, I smirked: “ You got something you wanna say?” I asked mockingly.

Anger flashed across his face, and his stinger came rushing at me from behind him, closing in as fast as it had before. 

Just as it was about to stab me in the arm, I thrust the riffle up with my hand, the butt of the gun colliding with the stinger, and just as I had calculated, pushing it right back to the sender, and it pierced the scorpion in the collarbone. 

A dreadful howl rang through the woods as the scorpion fell back on himself, blood spurting out as if it wasn’t a clean puncture like his friend but a nasty scar along his bones. 

I discarded the gun and followed the path the werecat took, making a mental note that despite how bulletproof the assassin suit was, it could be torn open by a scorpion’s stinger. 

Crystal was never a fast runner, more versed in brute strength, so it wasn’t that hard to catch up with her. 

“Hey, I got something for you!” I said as I was shoulder to shoulder with my fellow foster sibling. 

“What?” she asked, and I tossed her one of the flying devices. 

She caught it and stopped, examining it. 

I stopped as well and pointed to the red button on it. 

“It’s a flying device. Just press that button, and the apparatus will set itself up automatically,” I explained.

Crystal looked up at me in delight. “Get out of here. What are we waiting for? Let’s use it?” she said and pressed the red button. 

I stood back, recalling how big BiBi’s became and then took out my own and pressed the red button on that one. 

As before, the device flew out of our hands and unfolded itself. It was like the most amazing metallic origami you could ever find as it unfolded elegantly to reveal straps, a jet pack and wings, all perfectly automated and waiting to be worn. 

Crystal and I pulled the device to our level and shrugged on the straps. It was very thoughtfully made such that you could buckle straps around your legs, waist and chest to create a secure yet comfortable hold on your body. 

Once we were strapped in, Crystal turned to me.

“No what?” she asked, trying to start it by jumping up and down. 

“Apple said it was thought activated? Maybe we need to think about flight?” I said, looking at the sky, and thought, “ Fly!” 

Nothing happened. 

In the distance, there was a rumbling, as though something large and long was rapidly approaching. 

“I-I think we should try a running start” Crystal said nervously, running further through the woods. 

I kept thinking up, but to no avail. As the rumbling got louder and louder, I gave up and took off after Crystal. Did these last two flying devices happen to be defective? But they unfolded like the others did before just fine…

As we ran, gunshots were fired and they whizzed past our heads. without warning, we both found ourselves flung to the side, slamming into the base of a tree. 

“What the hell? Are these devices alright?” Crystal groaned, stumbling out of the bush we landed in. 

I brushed myself off, feeling pissed off. What were we doing wrong? Then it clicked. It wasn’t the thought it responded to. It was the energy.

I grabbed Crystal's hand and started running again.

“What were you thinking when the bullet flew past?” I shouted as we ran forward together.

“I was thinking….right?” Crystal responded, and then, just like that, it sunk in for her too. 

“Hey, You two! Stop!” A voice called out from behind us, but just as we both took our next step, we both shouted “ UP!” and we took flight!

We broke apart from the force of the jet packs rearing to life and blasting us up into the air. 

“Alainnnaaa!!!! YAAHOOO!!!!!!” Crystal screamed as she went careening through the sky, her tail flapping around like a flag trailing behind her.

I looked down and smirked at the pure chaos happening below us. It seemed that the assassins in pursuit were struggling with their familiars as they tried to follow us in the sky. They were completely out of control as their handlers tried to calm them down and stop them from climbing the trees in order to get to us. 

I could see the Bassilik just a little bit further back, rearing its sleek-black face up the top of a tree to gaze at me from afar, and I gave it the sign language for “bye” because you know what? It wasn’t its fault that its owner was a muscle head. 

To my surprise, the great beast winked at me and sank back down to the earth as if it were biding me fair. 

I blushed and turned away to locate Crystal, who was still chaotically rolling around in the clouds nearby. 

I had a soft spot for all the familiars as they were in far worse situations than the rest of us, as their contracts were won, not bought, and they were forced into a lifetime of servitude just from losing a battle. That was bullshit and a half, and if I could, I would break all the spells that bound familiar to their masters, even if it was for just one day, just to give them a chance at a high break of their own. 

Seeing such a great beast as the Basillik acknowledge me in any way was such a high honour to me; I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of myself for succeeding at evading it. I put up a good fight, didn’t I? I hope it didn’t get too badly punished for letting me get away. 

“Crystal, we got to go!” I said and grabbed the girl’s ankle mid-air and dragged her along behind me.

It would be such a waste to let this lead we now had go to waste because I was gushing like a schoolgirl over my temporary victory, and Crystal was experiencing flight for the first time in her werecat life. 

“Is this how it felt to fly when you still had wings?” Crystal asked, giggling, then stopped and started to drop. 

“Up! Crystal, think up!” I groaned as I had to hold onto her foot as a dead weight int he sky all of a sudden.

“S-Sorry!” Crystal replied and became buoyant again. 

“It’s fine, you can ask me about my wings. Yes, it was pretty awesome, but you know how Mother feels about winged assassins,” I said, releasing Crystal so that she could right herself. 

“Wings get in the way of speed and stealth, but then why does she still have her wings? I think she is just jealous that your wings are prettier,” Crystal said with a pout as she did a summersault in the air.

“Yeah, well, we’ll never know for sure. Let’s get to the fair and get as far away from her as possible” I sighed and scanned the town below us to be sure that we were heading in the right direction.